University of Hong Kong's former dean of medicine is jailed

doi:10.1136/bmj.b3668

Published 8 September 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b3668
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b3668

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University of Hong Kong’s former dean of medicine is jailed

Jane Parry

¹ Hong Kong

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Lam Shiu-kum, the former dean of the Li Ka Shing Faculty ofMedicine at the University of Hong Kong, has been sentencedto 25 months in jail after pleading guilty to misconduct inpublic office.

The misconduct involved inducing 12 patients who were treatedat Queen Mary Hospital, the university’s teaching facility,to pay what appeared to be medical bills issued by the universityand the hospital but were payable to Gastrointestinal Research,a company wholly owned by Professor Lam.

In addition to these payments—which totalled $HK130 000(£10 000; ${euro}$ 12 000; $17 000)—three patients made totaldonations of $HK3.8m to the same company. None of the patientswere told that it was Dr Lam’s company, the court heard.In addition to the charge under which Dr Lam was convicted,the court has kept on file 30 counts of fraud and three of theft.