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he January issue of World Asian Medical Journal, #28, features a wide-ranging interview with ChiCheng Huang, MD, Section Chief of Hospital Medicine and Associate Professor of Hospital Medicine at Atrium Health Wake Forest Medical Center. Dr. Huang provides us with insights into his fascinating career, profoundly influenced as it was by his experience early on at a refugee camp in Serbia, under the aegis of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and soon thereafter at an orphanage in Bolivia. His care of street children in La Paz and El Alto was particularly formative, and, it seems, harrowing; the understanding he developed prompted him to publish When Invisible Children Sing and, later, to build a home for them there.

Dr. Huang touches on his involvement with and the importance of community and critical access hospitals, and of academic medica centers. He stresses cultural competence, mental healthcare, punctuality, and addressing such challenges to care as language barriers and the social determinants of health.

As a result of his experiences early in life, young Chi Huang abandoned his original plan to become a diplomat like his father and to become a doctor instead. Dr Huang’s gratitude towards his parents, and for the opportunities they made possible for him, pervades his discussion, as he emphasizes his debt and his lifelong commitment to repaying it through service to others. Dr. Huang suggests it was this commitment that led to his being awarded the Taiwanese Humanitarian Award, and it’s difficult to challenge his conclusion.

While we are confident you will enjoy reading Dr. Huang’s interview, do not neglect any of the Journal’s other offerings, such as Dr. Chul Hyun’s comment on CDC’s guidelines on chronic hepatitis B (CHB) here in the United States, Sabina Lee’s book review of (no relation) Peter Lee’s “The AI Revolution in Medicine: GPT-4 and Beyond,” or the issues’ biopharma reports. You’ll be glad you did.

Happy new year, and happy reading.

Joseph P. McMenamin, MD, JD, FCLM

Editor in Chief
EVP of W Medical Strategy Group