This year RS marks its 45th years old since its establishment in 1978. To commence the celebration series, RS held the Kick-Off Ceremony of RS 45th Anniversary Celebration cum Spring Dinner on 7th February 2023. More than 200 distinguished guests, alumni, students and staff have joined us to share the happiness of celebration in the first month of Year of the Rabbit. The event was jointly organized with Physiotherapy Students’ Society and Occupational Students’ Society.
Among them, we felt privileged to have Dr Miranda LOU (Executive Vice President, PolyU) and Dr Libby LEE (Undersecretary for Health, Health Bureau) deliver speeches. Following their impressive sharing, Prof. Hector TSANG (Cally Kwong Mei Wan Professor in Psychosocial Health, Chair Professor of Rehabilitation Sciences and Head, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences) hosted a chit chat session with Prof. Sophia CHAN (Professor in Nursing / Senior Advisor to the President’s Office, Former Secretary for Food and Health, Food and Health Bureau) to discuss the future development of rehabilitation sciences. A gimmick opening for posting sapphire puzzles was then held to symbolize our shinning wishes for the practitioners and stakeholders of Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy to join hands and contribute to the allied health fields.
RS has been admitting students with the highest DSE scores among all PolyU academic programmes. To better nurture these high-quality students, RS has launched the High Flyer Programme to pair up high flyer students and elite alumni since 2018. To update this accomplishment, Prof. Shamay NG (Associate Head and Professor of RS) gave a sharing on the progress of the Programme during the event. Mr Jimmy WU (Director, District Health Centre Team, Health Bureau), our mentor of the Programme and Mr Curtis YU (Year 2 student, BSc (Hons) in Physiotherapy Programme) highlighted what they have experienced in the Programme. Ms Magdalene POON (Department Manager, Occupational Therapy Department, Kwai Chung Hospital) also shared her thought to the audiences.
The band show by our students and the singing session were the climaxes of the event. The student band members, consisting of year 2 and 3 Physiotherapy Programme students, have thoroughly showcased their talent in singing and playing musical instruments throughout this session. Prof. Hector TSANG and the VIPs then joined the team to sing classical songs in the 1980s, bringing resonance of past memory among the alumni.
At the end of the event, Prof. TSANG delivered the closing address in which he thanked all the guests, colleagues and students for attending the event. He also looked forward to seeing them in the other RS 45th anniversary events and expressed his best wishes for RS to close the event.