The development of Western medicine in Hong Kong to its current sophisticated state over more than 150 years is a fascinating story. And this book tells the above history from a special perspective-the personalities responsible for this remarkable achievement.

These individuals, spanning over a period of over 150 years, comprised doctors in government public medical and health services who advocated new initiatives and laid the infrastructure; those who established health policies, and moved the health system forward; the medical educators who trained the medical workforce and generated new medical knowledge through their research; practising doctors, who not only delivered medical care but also offered their free services in education and social welfare; and pioneer female doctors before and after World War II who struggled their ways to the medical world and shined on their own specialties. The story of each doctor in this book is narrated in the context of the complex political, social, and economic backdrop of his/her time.

While these doctors from diverse backgrounds lived in different eras and engaged in different branches of medicine, they were strikingly similar in several aspects: their dedication to serving the community and their tireless labor to achieve their aim at times under adverse conditions, leaving their mark in the history of medicine in Hong Kong.