Macau’s 30th Sino-Luso International Medical Forum was held on April 15-17.

Titled, “International Multidisciplinary Medical Symposium” this scientific program featured special training sessions for doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers.

A group of medical experts and leaders from the USA, Portugal, Sweden, Hong Kong and Macau SAR presented and toured local medical facilities in the city.

President forum Prof Manson Fok commented, “The exciting program would not have been possible without our many partners from the Portuguese speaking world. I would like to take this opportunity to commend the Macau Portuguese Speaking Physicians Association. With your highly skilled professional doctors, in particular those in the field of cardiology and other healthcare professionals, you have shown much dedication in continuing medical education for those junior doctors in participating in our forum.”

Three renowned cardiologists from Portugal, Dr Maria Ana Santos de Sampaio de Magalhaes, Dr Jorge Sales Marques and the CEO of Hospital da Cruz Vermelha in Lisbon, Portugal, Dr Manuel Pedro Pereira Dia de Magalhaes presented innovative treatments, and interactive discussions of clinical cases. These are predominantly in the Impact of Cardiac Surgery Program, Practical Approach of Genetic and Metabolic Diseases and Complex Congenital Heart Diseases in Small children.

An expert from Sweden, Tomas Ragnarsson presented an interesting topic titled, “Should Simulation Training be Mandatory or not?” Mr Ragnarsson said, “Simulation works and we have seen more and more simulation labs setting up in Europe and mainland China for the past few ten years.” He also added, “We also see big changes in Macau especially in the faculty of health sciences of MUST. I can see some radical changes in how medical programs and curriculum are delivered and implemented in their training courses. Simulation is indded ery powerful training tool for the delivery of deliberate practice coupled to formative and summative metric-based feedback on performance. In the absence of computer generated simulation, formative metrics on training performance need to be delivered by a trainer who is very experienced at performance assessment.”

From Hong Kong University, the Assistant Dean of LKS Faculty of Medicine, Prof Wico Lai, shared his latest discoveries in Presbyopia. Prof Lai is an expert in the field especially in developing effective therapeutic agents and treatment modalities that will ultimately benefit patients who are afflicted with blinding eye diseases.

A very special workshop and presentation about medical hypnosis was held by Dr Kenneth Coyle from the USA. Dr Coyle noted, “Clinical hypnotherapy is a combination of hypnosis and a psychological treatment. Neuroscience has been a long held fascination for me. It validates how incredibly simple and effective ways relief can be found from unbearable anxiety. Our forum workshops will teach our medical professionals how to achieve the calming effect of Medical Hypnosis.”

Prof Manson Fok continued, “We’re good at bringing good experts together and there are some really exciting things happening here in this particular Sino Luso International Medical Forum. What we do is really important for advancing medical science, and for our local medical professionals and ultimately, for humanity. People in Macau are living longer as a result of the work our medical professionals. Hence, for this international forum, I wish you well as we will meet and discuss the issues in cutting edge treatments over the next few weeks. We are look forward to welcoming you to Macau and to a very successful medical forum.