Dr Ho Ping

By Jasminee Sahoye

He spent decades imparting his knowledge to medical professionals from around the world and was instrumental in arranging for doctors from Jamaicato be trained in Canada as specialists in areas that are most needed in the Caribbean.

Dr. Herbert Ho Ping Kong, a Jamaican-Canadian, has served as a senior consulting physician at the University Health Network (UHN) which includes Toronto General Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital, Princess Margaret Hospital and Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and co-founded the Toronto General and Western Hospital's new Dr. Herbert Ho Ping Kong Centre for Excellence in Education and Practice.

Through the UHN, senior medical professionals from the Caribbean are offered a two-year clinical fellowship which prepares them to be leaders, specialists and sub-specialists in their particular areas.

According to Dr. Ho Ping Kong, who graduated from the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona Campus in 1965 and later taught medicine there, the collaboration between UWI and UHN dates back to the 1970s when three senior Canadian neurologists went to teach at the Campus.

It was after a Jamaican doctor, Owen Morgan, who received advanced training in Canada and returned to UWI that Dr. Ho Ping Kong started a collaborative initiative to have staff trained as leaders, consultants and professors at UHN.

“We started off with respirology and intensive care medicine. We did two of those people and they actually went back and helped set up a modern intensive care unit and introduced modern respirology to Jamaica. Since that time, we have had something like 21 of these young leaders/consultants that have been to the University Health Network in a variety of areas…. Of this group, some 14 people have returned to the Caribbean, one to Antigua, one to St Kitts, but most to Jamaica.”

This retired doctor, who has received several awards and recognitions, says currently the specialists are being trained in infectious diseases, cardiology, endocrinology and other areas that are not available in the Caribbean. Doctors from Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados also benefited from the program.

For the first time, there is a trained cardiologist at the hospital in Montego Bay, according to Dr. Ho Ping Kong. “It’s important for Torontonians because there’re approximately 150,000 Canadians who actually visit Montego Bay every year. Until she went there, there was not a fully trained cardiologist in the biggest hospital in that part of the island.”

He added that while the specialists gain from program, UHN also gains. “These people are the best students we have in Jamaica and they come to us highly recommended by the chairman (at UWI). They have seen a lot of medicine, it may be different to what we have here, but they bring high motivation and help with our service and also our teaching program….”

Currently there are some 10 trainees in the program and according to Dr. Ho Ping Kong most of the funding to train these specialists comes from UHN.

But there has been a sizeable donation from fellow Jamaican Canadian, Ryerson Chancellor, Raymond Chang. “About six years ago, mid-way to this program, he gave a tidy sum of a million dollars to support one of these positions every year, so that program, the Raymond Chang Caribbean fellowship is actually funding the fifth person… they have done five of these 21 people. The reason why this is important is that resources are not equally distributed in these specialities and those areas where there is not a lot of monetary support, it is important that we find funding to cover these area and that’s what Mr. Chang’s donation has done for us.”

A gold medalist in medicine at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Dr. Ho Ping Kong completed post-graduate studies in the U.K., and migrated to Canada in 1973. He spent more than a decade at McGill University, where he established the first division of internal medicine at Royal Victoria Hospital.

And after almost 40 years of living and working in Canada, he has not lost his Jamaican accent. He says he is proud that he was born in Jamaica. “It gave me a great education at St George College. I’m a member of the Hall of Fame there and I got great education at the University of the West Indies. You never forget the place that taught you how to be what you are. I had great teachers… It gave me a change to do research while I was there. The level of training there is as high as anywhere in the world….. I think where you were born is important, even though things have changed in Jamaica, I don’t like what’s going on in some areas, it’s still where I was born, it’s still where I grew up, it’s still where I studied…. It’s gratifying to see these young people come here spend their two years, make us proud. I’m proud of them when they come here. I tell them to do back and make the difference that they are making, it’s a great satisfaction.

The UHN will be recognized for its contributions at the third Annual Benefit UWI gala in Toronto on March 10. Dr. Ho Ping Kong was honoured at the first gala for his sterling contributions to UWI.