Co-organised by the Department of Justice and the Hospital Authority, the medical mediation seminar entitled "Healing beyond the body and mind: Use of mediation in medical disputes" has come to fruition today (May 4). The seminar is the third thematic event held during Mediation Week 2022, attracting over 500 participants who attended virtually.

     The seminar commenced with the welcoming remarks by the Chief Executive of Hospital Authority, Dr Tony Ko, who explained that the Hospital Authority, as a "people-first" organisation, encourages their staff to use mediation and mediation skills to facilitate communication and build trust with patients in order to achieve early resolution of disputes in a medical setting.

     During the seminar, distinguished guest speakers Mr David Kan, Professor Albert Lee, Dr Danny Lee and Ms Fion Lee shared their views from legal and dispute resolution, regulatory, patient relations and hospital administration angles, on the use of mediation in resolving medical disputes arising in public and private hospital settings, with the aid of a short dramatisation of a medical dispute based on a real-life medical case, and demonstrations of mediation sessions.

     The individual presentations were followed by an armchair discussion hosted by the moderator, Dr Peter Pang. The vibrant discussions included the benefits and challenges in the use of mediation to resolve medical disputes, the takeaways from the hospital in-house complaints-handling mechanism, and salient matters that require more attention for mediation to be more widely adopted in a medical setting. The prospect of introducing mediation into the disciplinary procedures of the Medical Council of Hong Kong was also explored with reference to the Singapore model.

     For more information on the seminar and Mediation Week 2022, please visit the dedicated event website.

Ends/Wednesday, May 4, 2022
Issued at HKT 16:16

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