The Department of Emergency Medicine (DEM) was established by HKUMed in February 2022 as a result of HKU's desire to align academic with the 14 Colleges in Hong Kong Academy of Medicine. It followed eight years of growth of its predecessor - the Emergency Medicine Unit - which was formed in November 2014. It faces the grand challenges of this age in emergency medicine and aims to attract the best minds and hearts to pioneer cutting edge initiatives in clinical service, education and research. Through local and international collaboration it aims to be a leader in the Asia Pacific region.

The vision is to see the establishment of a world-class academic Department of Emergency Medicine leading state-of-the-art translational personalized and precision medicine with impact.

The DEM’s practical, translational research includes clinical and molecular-based diagnostic and risk-stratification markers and pathways, clinical trials and systems analysis in acute critical illness and injury. Our focus is on sepsis, infectious diseases and stroke.

Our programmes are based on a foundation of basic sciences and mechanisms of disease leading ultimately to preventative, screening, diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic discoveries and applications in acute illness and injury.

The professoriate staff provide specialist clinical services at the Outpatient and Emergency Department of Gleneagles (Hong Kong) Hospital, the Accident and Emergency Department of Queen Mary Hospital and at the Accident and Emergency Department of HKU-Shenzhen Hospital.

Professor Timothy Hudson Rainer (譚偉恩) joined HKUMed as Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine and Head of the Department of Emergency Medicine in October 2020. He has more than 30 years of experience in clinical and academic emergency medicine.

Professor Rainer obtained his intercalated BSc in Medical Biochemistry, MBBCh and MD from the University of Wales College of Medicine. He served in the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Prince of Wales Hospital from 1996 to 2015 as Director of the Accident and Emergency Medicine Academic Unit (2004 – 2015), Chief of Service (2003 – 2010) and Consultant (2003 – 2015). He set up the Emergency Medicine Unit in Cardiff University’s School of Medicine (2015 – 2018) and was Vice-President of the International Federation for Emergency Medicine (2016 – 2018).

Professor Rainer’s vision is to see the establishment of a world-class academic Department of Emergency Medicine with state-of-the-art translational research.