The Hong Kong Queen Mary Hospital Second Thoracic Surgery Symposium Focused Issue
It is indeed our pleasure to serve as co-editors of this Hong Kong Queen Mary Hospital Second Thoracic Surgery Symposium Focused Issue. The two of us first met 29 years ago when we traveled separately to Boston from Hong Kong and Italy to learn from the late modern day father of airway surgery, Dr. Hermes C. Grillo (Figure 1). Since then, we have become great friends professionally and personally.
The symposium which took place on September 05, 2017 was a complete success! We want to thank Dr. Timmy Wing Kuk Au, Chief of Service of Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery of Queen Mary Hospital, for organizing this special event in Hong Kong. Dr. Au is an energetic young cardiothoracic surgeon with many talents who constantly and tirelessly pushes his department to achieve new breakthroughs. Dr. Au worked hard to gather a large group of local and overseas experts and we had a full day of in depth presentations and discussion on many challenging topics in thoracic surgery. We were flattered by Professor John Wong’s attendance and welcoming speech. Professor John Wong was former Chairman of Department of Surgery of the University of Hong Kong and he had made numerous contributions in surgery especially in the field of esophageal surgery. We were also grateful to Dr. Che Chung Luk, Cluster Chief Executive of Hong Kong West Cluster and Hospital Chief Executive of Queen Mary Hospital for coming to give an introductory speech as well.
Throughout the conference, speakers and moderators from all sectors of thoracic surgery community had detailed discussion of many challenging problems facing us these days. We are indebted to all the participants who took time out of their busy practice to come and share their invaluable experience. In the order of appearance in the accompanied program (Figure 2), they were Professor Simon Ying Kit Law, Professor Enders Kwok Wai Ng, Professor Garrett Walsh, Dr. Ko Yung Sit, Dr. Clement Shui Wah Chiu, Dr. Kai Ming Ko, Dr. Alan Wai Sing Suen, Professor Calvin Sze Hang Ng, and Dr. Michael Kwan Yew Hsin.
We thank all the contributors of this focused issue for taking their time to put in writing their unique experience in cutting edge thoracic surgery so that thoracic surgeons from all over the world can benefit. The wide breath of topics covered include Professor John Wong’s first-hand account of esophageal resection at the University of Hong Kong from 1982 to 2008, the first report of successful combined esophagectomy and carinal pneumonectomy, a rare and hard to diagnose condition—congenital H-type tracheoesophageal fistula, lobectomy with angioplasty, an original “double-step” technique for large superior sulcus tumors resection, chest wall resection and reconstruction for tumor, evolution of minimally invasive thoracic surgery, catheter-based alternative treatment for early-stage lung cancer, ex vivo lung perfusion and history of lung transplantation in Hong Kong.
Acknowledgements
We thank all the reviewers who have spent a lot of time improving the quality of the manuscripts. We thank Mr. Brad Li, medical journal editor, and AME Publishing Company for their hard work and seamless production of this focused issue.
