17 Apr 2009 - 18 Apr 2009 18th Annual Scientific Meeting The 18th Annual Scientific Meeting was held from 17-18 April 2009 and was officially open by Mr Khaw Boon Wan, Minister for Health. The theme for this year’s meeting centred on Medical Professionalism. In the words of our Co-Chairpersons of the Organising Committee, Associate Professor Wong Wai Keong and Associate Professor Sandy Cook, “Professionalism is used to describe those skills, attitudes and behaviours which we have come to expect from the individuals during the practice of their profession, and the medical profession is no exception. Medical Professionalism is the basis of medicine’s social contract with society. It has long been based on mutual trust between the medical profession and the society.”   The keynote lecture "Quality, Innovation and Professionalism", was delivered by Professor Lord Darzi of Denham KBE, FMedSci, Hon FREng, Professor of Surgery, Imperial College London.  Professor Darzi’s main clinical and academic interest is in minimal invasive therapy, including imaging and biological research together with investigating methods to measure core competencies of surgery objectively.   This year’s event was graced by several leading luminaries in the field of medical professionalism, including Prof Stuart Youngner, Chairman, Department of Bioethics, Case Western Reserve University, A/Prof Daniel Fu-Chang Tsai, Department of Social Medicine, and Department of Family Medicine, National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Professor Katherine Grichnik, Associate Dean for CME, Professor of Anesthesia, Duke University School of Medicine. The meeting closed with a formal dinner at the Ritz Carlton, with Professor Stuart J Youngner as the distinguished lecturer of the night.