Dear Friends and Colleagues,

“Nothing worth doing is easy, if it is, it may not be worth doing.”

It is a great privilege for me to serve as the 6th President of the Hepatopancreatobiliary Association of Singapore (HPBAS).

It has been more than a decade since its inception in 2012. The HPBAS serves as a professional body which brings together members from across the HPB community in Singapore– surgeons, specialists, doctors, scientists and other medical professionals from across Singapore.  

The Association aims to advance the level of subspecialty care in this field and strives to raise awareness of HPB-related diseases in the greater community, as well as improving the standards of care for HPB diseases in Singapore.

As we look forward, it is important to reaffirm our key missions as a professional body:

1. Education and Training: We are committed to nurturing the next generation of HPB specialists through education and training programs.
2. Promoting Excellence in Research: We will continue to encourage and facilitate cutting-edge clinical, translational and basic research in Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary sciences. We will encourage and support multi-centre studies across Asia Pacific and beyond, as knowledge is our best tool against disease.
3. Global Collaboration: We aim to strengthen international and regional collaborations, sharing best practices and knowledge to tackle the most challenging aspects of HPB science.
4. Patient-Centred Care: Our ultimate goal is to improve patient care. We will advocate for the highest standards of clinical practice. We will endeavour to further develop allied specialties in the years ahead. 

Our subspecialty fraternity has come a long way, building up the level of expertise to world class standards, hosting the Asia-Pacific HPB congress in 2015, the ASEAN Laparoscopic HPB conference in 2018, and supporting many other meetings as well. Soon, we will host the prestigious International HPB Association World Congress in Singapore in 2026, the largest HPB congress in the world.

We have also organised a myriad of education initiatives, training and outreach activities, both locally and regionally. We have been engaging our General Practitioner (GP) partners and the general public through forums, together with our institutional and industry partners.

In addition to our educational and training efforts, we have been actively assisting and engaging with the Ministry of Health in the formulation of relevant healthcare policies and guidelines, to continue in better defining and achieving recognition for our subspecialty.

Through all these activities, it has heartening to see the HPB family come together as one towards a common goal – to advance our subspecialty care so we can do better for our patients.

I am confident that our current generation and the next generation of HPB surgeons will continue to do our best. Together, I believe we have the potential to shape the future of Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Sciences.

“We tend to overestimate what we can do alone and underestimate what we can do together.”

Dr. Lee Ser Yee

President, Hepatopancreatobiliary Association (Singapore) (2023-2025)