Registration Link: Click Here
MH Conversations and Connections Series – Lunchtime Seminar
Title: When doctors become patients: Lessons for providers
Date: 30 October 2025 (Thursday)
Time: 12:30 – 1:45 pm HKT
Venue: Faculty Board Room, 1/F, Daniel & Mayce Yu Administration Wing, LKS Faculty of Medicine, 21 Sassoon Road
Registration Link: Click Here
Abstract:
Medical students undergo profound transformations from being lay people to being physicians, but what happens when physicians develop serious illness and must become patients? What do they learn and unlearn? How does this experience alter them? Prof Robert Klitzman conducted in-depth research, interviewed 75 physicians who became patients with serious illness, revealing unique and valuable insights into what such doctors come to know that they did not realize before. They developed “double lenses” coming to see aspects of care that they did not appreciate beforehand regarding provider-patient relationships and communications, perceptions of risks and benefits and other areas. This lecture will explore these and distill these lessons, which have profound implications for medical education.
Speaker:
Professor Robert Klitzman, M.D.
Program Director, Bioethics; Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Robert Klitzman, M.D., is a professor of psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Joseph Mailman School of Public Health, and the Program Director of the Master of Science in Bioethics at Columbia University. He co-founded and for five years co-directed the Columbia University Center for Bioethics, and directed the Ethics and Policy Core of the HIV Center for 10 years. He has published over 180 scientific journal articles, nine books, and numerous chapters on critical issues in bioethics including genetics, neuroethics, HIV prevention, research ethics, and doctor-patient relationships.
Professor Klitzman has received numerous awards for his work, including fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund, the Aaron Diamond Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. He is a member of the Empire State Stem Cell Commission and served on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Research Ethics Advisory Panel. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a regular contributor to the New York Times and CNN.
Moderator:
Dr Olivia Ngan
Research Assistant Professor
Medical Ethics & Humanities Unit
School of Clinical Medicine, HKUMed
Welcome to join us!
Enquiry: Please contact Mr Edison Cheng (mehu@hku.hk).