Welcome to the 2008 Chinese American Medical Society (CAMS) Annual Scientific Meeting and Gala Dinner.  How ironic is it for us to celebrate in Wall Street?  I believe this global financial crisis is a testament to the stability and the genuine need for your everyday work as a physician. On behalf of the Board, we express our gratitude to our Meeting Chair, Dr. Jennifer Liu, our Dinner Chair, Dr. Danny Fong, and our Social Chair, Dr. Darryl Wu working with the members of their committees in putting together an exciting scientific program in the CitiGroup Conference Center and a wonderful evening gala held in the historic landmark, Cipriani Wall Street.

Following the forty years of our society's tradition, our Annual Scientific Meeting presents a forum for us to share the work of distinguished Chinese American physicians and scientists.  This meeting is only one step toward the understanding of health issues that are uniquely important to Chinese American.  I can only hope that an increasing number of us will find personal satisfaction in taking up this task as a life-time calling.  The Chinese immigrants have found the United States to be our home to reach our potentials and raise our families.  The need to assimilate into this multi-ethnic society is an admirable goal.  However, it is also our duties to highlight, educate, impact on our community and others regarding the unique contributions that we can make from the four thousand years of Chinese culture and tradition.  This year's meeting features a number of physicians and scientists presenting their innovative work.  We appreciate the unique work that was presented today, especially those pertain to Chinese American.

The annual CAMS Gala is an evening to celebrate all of your work in our community.  This includes the day to day work of each individual physician who put in long hours in caring for our Chinese American patients in times of great needs.  It is the time we want to highlight individuals who have made extraordinary contributions in our great community.  This year, we have the privilege to honor and highlight the works of two distinguished Chinese Americans, Dr.  T. C. Wu and Dr. Pauline Chen.  These two individuals exemplify the contribution of Chinese Americans in our adopted country.  This morning, Dr. Wu presented his work on the discovery of the cervical cancer vaccine, and Dr. Pauline Chen gave a heart warming talk on sacred relationship between the patient and the physician.

I invite all of you to review the tally of the many events, activities and milestones that CAMS has accomplished in the last twelve months.  I like to take this opportunity to thank the leadership and the founders of the Chinese American Independent Physicians Association (CAIPA) to have endowed our large Community Service Fund which has allowed our society to fund the number of projects as listed in this program journal.  This fund has three missions:

1. The contribution of the fund is vital in the continuing support of many non-profit Chinese American organizations in New York, including the Chinese Unit of the American Cancer Society, the Charles B. Wang Chinatown Health Clinic, the Chinatown Partnership-Local Development Corporation and the various local hospital fund-raising events.  As part of our outreach efforts, we funded youth programs such as the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Race, and the National Chinese American Youth Volleyball Tournament, both of which were held in New York.  The Free Flu Vaccine program has extended into the vibrant and blossoming Brooklyn Chinatown; it debuted last winter and is run by the Downstate CAMS medical student club.  The entire event is now held annually and covers Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn Chinatowns as led by Dr. Perry Pong of the Chinatown Health Clinic.

2. This second mission of this Fund has supported a number of ongoing community based research projects on the health of Chinese American such as the unique and notable work on osteoporosis in Chinese American headed by Dr. George Liu.  We hope to continue in this endeavor.

3. Thirdly, this Fund underwrites the cost of the annual CAMS scientific meeting like the one we had today.

The second CAMS fund is called the Education Fund.  It supports scholarly work of medical students throughout the country.  Annually, we distribute in the order of six medical school scholarships and four summer research projects.  The results of these works are presented in our annual meeting.  The fund is opened to Chinese American medical students throughout the country and we encourage research on issues particular to Chinese.  We ask all of you to contribute to this important fund today to ensure its survival.

We have made four milestones this year:

1. CAMS Administrator and Permanent Office: Thanks to the generous contribution of CAIPA, CAMS now has a home in the CAIPA headquarters and we have a full time administrator, Jamie Seto, whose hard work is invaluable in the functioning of our society.  There is woman behind every story.  CAMS has three.  I like to ask Jamie Seto, Peggy Sheng and Dr. Hseuh Hwa Wang to stand up for a round of applause.

2. New Website, CAMSOCIETY.ORG: Led by Dr. Raymond Yung, our website committee has created a new website that will be informative, interesting, and serve as a place for real time interaction.  I invite you to visit often in the next year to see the number of new programs that will be instituted.

3. May 12 Earthquake Victim Donation: In the wake of the Sichuan, China earthquake in May this year, the leaderships of CAMS and CAIPA (Dr. George Liu and Peggy Sheng) managed to raise in two weeks close to $100,000 to help the victims.  This exemplifies the cohesiveness of our societies, CAMS and CAIPA in making an impact.

4. Chinese American Health Initiative: Our newly formed research committee is co-chaired by Dr. Victor Chang and Dr. Savio Woo.  Although only in its making, this newly formed research committee have approached the leaders of our community to form a working group comprised of the CAMS, CAIPA, Charles B. Wang Chinatown Health Clinic.  This initiative will allow this "big three" to work closely together.  It will also work with other local organizations such as the Chinese Unit of the American Cancer Society, the Healthy Heart Coalition led by our vice president Dr. Warren Chin and the newly formed Chinese American Cardiovascular Association led by our board member Dr. Johnny Lee. The mission of the Chinese American Health Initiative is to allow us to coordinate, engender, and perform community based health related research that are unique to Chinese Americans.  This Initiative aims to work with existing organization such as the Asian Health Unit at New York University led by Dr. Mariano Rey and the New York Downtown Hospital's Chinese Community Partnership for Health led by Dr. Eric Poon.  We can only hope that there will be others who maybe interested.

In short, CAMS is a collective work of many individuals and this may include you.  I encourage all of you to take part and invite all of you to join our board of directors to move the society forward for the betterment of our large Chinese American community.

CAMS has now close to 1,200 members, but it is only a microcosm.  CAMS is a member of our national medical organization of many associations.  It is called the Federation of Chinese American and Chinese Canadian Medical Societies with over 4,000 members.  It is a federation that is a brainchild of Dr. David Chiu, Dr. Sun Foo Hoo, Dr. Hsueh Hwa Wang and Dr. Ed Chow.  This year we have Dr. Daisy Saw as the president.  All of them are in this room today.

We can be much more than that.  A group of us in New York and California had a retreat in Irving, California three weeks ago.  After 16 hours of deliberation, we decided to file a corporate application to form a new 501c3 non-profit national organization of Asian physicians.  It will be called the National Council of Asian and Pacific Island Physicians.  Together with the existing National Medical Association representing the African Americans, and the National Hispanic Association, we have access to a Tri-Caucus comprised of 60 Congressman in the House of Representatives.  This is our voice to obtain federal resources to fund work on ethnic disparities that has been utterly ignored in our Chinese American community.

We have entered a new era.  Please step forward to help us to help all of you.

     Wilson Ko, M.D.
     Professor and Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery
     SUNY Downstate Medical Center