A speech

Good Evening, Ladies & Gentlemen; 

may I have ur  attention please.

A special good evening to  Mr David Tolley, 

President of Royal College of Surgeons, & Mrs Tolley;  

Good evening also to Mr Sam McClinton, Past-President of the Scottish  Urological Society n Lead Examiner,  & Mrs McClinton,

This is not a formal dinner  but it is still good to say a few words at an important  gathering like this.

The Sarawak Club was founded in 1876 by Sir Charles Brooke, who was the second white Rajah of Sarawak.   

Sarawak was a separate state by itself: in fact  u may have noticed that one still need a passport to enter Sarawak! 

A surgeon,  Dr  MacDougall founded one of the earlier hospitals  in Kuching.  His wife founded a famous school very near to Pullman hotel, the St Mary’s school, where my wife, Ivy   Chin has been a senior teacher for > 20 years.  She is also responsible for this dinner!

I went Edinburgh to work under the late Professor Chisholm and Mr Tolley , to learn some urology!  It was in 1988  n 89. 

NOW EDINBURGH HAS COME TO KUCHING, HOPEFULLY ON A YEARLY BASIS !! Indeed there WAS ALREADY   a long tradition of  collaboration. While in Edinburgh I also had to report to the late Sir James Fraser who was the Post Graduate Dean of the College.  I discovered that he worked as a surgeon in Sarawak for many years, in his young days.

Malaysia, especially Sarawak is  peaceful with friendly people, wonderful patients. We are lucky  that the College with the help of Professor Khin Tun brought the MRCS exam here.  I understand that > 80 candidates applied and >half passed the recent exam  It is obvious that an Edinburgh  Royal College qualification  is  held in high regard in many parts of the world.

I want to welcome three special guests tonight: Dr John Chew, the Chairman of the Sarawak state Malaysian Medical Association & Dr Peter Wong , Secretary of the Malaysian College of Surgeons.  Thank you for the honour, Dr John Chew & Dr Peter Wong. We also have Dr Donald Liew, a young neurosurgeon at GH whom I hope can help us in the exam nest year!

Please enjoy the rest of the dinner and I hope we do meet again.

Dr Clarence Lei, clarencelei@gmail.com