Tonight, I am reflecting on the experience of learning from Dr. Ho Ping Kong. I had this opportunity twice in my first week of this selective, and will spend time with him again tomorrow afternoon. All first year medical students at the University of Toronto received a speech and a free copy of Dr. Ho Ping Kong's book at the beginning of our medical careers. It is fitting to revisit his principles in my last few months before graduation.

On our first day of this selective, we had a few free hours in the afternoon and were sitting at our desks, beginning to delve into the research papers from the rotation. Seeing us sitting idle, Dr. Ho Ping Kong ushered us into his office, which was stacked with cardboard boxes, bookshelves of autographed medical textbooks, and neatly printed out emails in stacks on his desk.

The following hours were the most unusual lesson I've received. Dr. Ho Ping Kong pulled out a box of photographs, filed like cue cards. The first: an anxious woman in April 2003 - what is the diagnosis? We studied her face for rashes and skin for discolouration, until we landed on the white mask around her neck. SARS. The second: a pair of brown hands, perhaps with a tinge of orange. Addison's.

It was not simply the photos that made the lesson interesting, though. Interspersed with telling us the story, HPK would pause to ask where we were born, our ethnic background, our home campus at UofT. I was so impressed when I told him I was Guyanese, and he remarked 'famous for Burnham and Jagan', referring to the political conflict that led to my parents leaving their home country before I was born. And then, smoothly, he would return to teaching us medicine again.

When I was in clinic with HPK later that week, I saw how his unique knowledge of culture, language, politics, geography and trivia were so integral to his teachings. A woman came in with a history of oral ulcers, and when we arrived in the room, he began asking me about the Chinese silk trading routes. Little did I know that she had Behcet's disease, most prevalent along these historic paths.

The doctor-patient relationship that HPK has with his patients is at times quirky and yet full of compassion. When a woman came in with cancer, fearful about an error in her management, he spent the first ten minutes of her appointment asking her about the current election, the derivation of her name, and her grandmother. Yet at times she was so anxious that she was in tears, and he would reassure her with composure and kindness. At the very end of the appointment, he revealed that he had emailed a close friend at TGH who would provide her with a second surgeon consultation and ensure she was well cared for. His incredible patient advocacy was quiet and subdued in that way.

I look forward to spending more time with HPK in the coming days, and to reflect on what I have learned through the process.

- Shara