Background

The Division of Dermatology was established in 2000, under Department of Medicine, the University of Hong Kong. It primarily met the demands of inter-department inpatient consultations and referrals and improved the dermatological care in Queen Mary Hospital, a tertiary medical centre of the Hong Kong West Cluster. With more than a decade of developments, the Dermatology Division provides comprehensive outpatient and an inpatient service for diagnosis and management of patients with dermatologic problems, with more than 5000 attendants per year. The strength of our division is emphasized in hospital-based dermatology, where our specialists attend to patients in the wards who have multiple co-morbidities in addition to the dermatological conditions. Referring clinicians consult dermatologists for challenging diagnoses and work hand-in-hand to optimizing management for our patients. With support from occupational therapists, we provide comprehensive wet wrap therapy for in-patients. Phototherapy unit was established in 2000, to provide treatment for patients with eczema, psoriasis and other common dermatoses, as well as rare disease such as mycosis fungoides a form of cutaneous lymphoma, in that we work closely with our hemato-oncology team. As skin disease can be cutaneous manifestations of systemic diseases, we also work closely with clinicians of other division to provide joint care to patients. With increasing demand, our combined Dermatology-Rheumatology clinic was established in 2019 to provide joint care to our psoriasis patients with joint problem and dermatology patients with rheumatic diseases or vice versa.

Paediatric Dermatology sub-specialty unit was first established in 2000 to meet the service need in Department of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, providing both inpatient and outpatient service, diagnostic tests and treatment from new-borns to adolescents, with attendance of more than1000 patients per year.

With further development in Dermatology Division, the dermatology nursing team has been established in 2022 to provide comprehensive nursing care including biologics screening and education. The current service also provides teleconsultation in dermatology for inpatients in HKWC with subsequent follow-up. With further collaboration with other department, our division continues to thrive to improve our service in HKWC, Hong Kong.

Mission

Our mission is to promote healthy skin condition and to improve the quality of life for patients with skin disease. To accomplish the mission, our Division has the following objectives:

• Promote basic knowledge on general skin health and protection
• Provide comprehensive diagnosis and multi-disciplinary treatment approach to patients with dermatological diseases
• Conduct evidence-based clinical trials/studies and initiate collaborative programmes for local and international researches
• Provide Dermatology training for Medical and Allied health professionals in Hong Kong and HKU-Shenzhen University Hospital
• Conduct local and international Scientific meetings and Courses for professional development and exchange