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Vivian Taam Wong to deliver third annual Bernard H. K. Luk Memorial Lecture

The third Bernard H. K. Luk Memorial Lecture in Hong Kong Studies at York University will feature Vivian Taam Wong, a leader in the establishment of the field of integrative medicine in Hong Kong.

Image may contain: 1 personWong will present the lecture in Hong Kong Studies on April 26 at 3 p.m. in Room 519, Kaneff Tower at the Keele Campus.

Wong, who is an honorary professor in the School of Chinese Medicine at the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, will deliver a talk titled “Integrative Medicine from China to the World.”

Wong is an honorary Fellow of Hong Kong University and the Open University of Hong Kong. She has served as chief executive of Queen Mary Hospital and, subsequently, the Hospital Authority of Hong Kong. As a public health specialist in policy and research at the World Bank, and consultant to the World Health Organization, she has participated in projects in China covering rural health manpower development, maternal and child health and primary health care. She set up the network of Chinese Medicine (CM) Centers for Training & Research in each district in Hong Kong and has had leadership roles in the Hong Kong Association for Integrative Chinese-Western Medicine, the Consortium for Globalization in CM, the Modernized CM International Association and the GP TCM Research Association.

This year’s lecture will be preceded by the inaugural accompanying workshop on the topic of Hong Kong, organized this year by Joan Judge (Department of History), titled “Synergies between Chinese and Western Medicine in Hong Kong and Beyond: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.”

This workshop will highlight Hong Kong’s pivotal role in one of the most important developments in the field of medicine today – the integration between what have been construed as “traditional Chinese” and “modern Western” medicine.

Together with Wong, workshop participants will examine the topic of integrative Chinese and Western medicine from two perspectives: scholarly research on the history of the relationship between Chinese medicine and Western biomedicine, and the current clinical practice of integrative medicine in Hong Kong and Canada. These participants include pre-eminent experts on various aspects of Chinese medicine from Hong Kong, Canada and the United States. Collectively, they will rethink the historical interplay between scientific biomedicine and Chinese medicine, and explore new possibilities in the medical field in both Hong Kong and the West today, said Judge.

More information about the lecture and the workshop can be found at ycar.apps01.yorku.ca/bernard-luk-memorial-lecture.

All are welcome. RSVPs are appreciated and can be sent to ycar@yorku.ca.

About the Bernard H. K. Luk Memorial Lecture

Professor Bernard H. K. Luk (1946-2016) was an internationally recognized authority on the history of Hong Kong and a faculty member at York University. Endowed by Luk’s friend and former student Vivienne Poy, the Bernard H. K. Luk Memorial Lecture in Hong Kong Studies honours his work. A group of Hong Kong scholars in Toronto organize the lecture annually, focusing on Hong Kong as a distinct society, its influence on the wider world or the experiences of the Hong Kong diaspora.

This workshop is presented by the York Centre for Asian Research and the Richard Charles Lee Hong Kong Library at the University of Toronto, with the support of K.Y. Ho and Betty Ho, the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and the Department of History at York University.