Ten minutes with Dr Hong Fung, CEO, Chinese University of Hong Kong Medical Centre

Fung, Hong Berendt Anthony

First and foremost, are there any key leadership messages you want to get out to our readership? Timely and candid communication—on the progress of the outbreak at a local level, how we are going to protect staff and the community, our strategies to ensure adequate supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE), progress on the treatment of sick patients, and our use of isolation facilities—is of the utmost importance, to build trust and solidarity, provide psychological support, align expectations and strengthen team spirit in fighting a long drawn-out battle. [...]I am the CEO [Chief Executive Officer] of the Chinese University of Hong Kong Medical Centre (CUHKMC), which is a new university teaching hospital in its planning stages, expected to open later this year, and I am also a professor of public health and primary care. What events in your past experience are most informing your leadership in this pandemic? I was the Cluster Chief Executive of the New Territories East Cluster—comprising seven public hospitals—and was Hospital Chief Executive of the Prince of Wales Hospital (PWH) in 2003, when the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic started right in my hospital.