Facing the camera on May 22, newly appointed Center for Disease Control Director-General Su Ih-jen (
Su, who shuttled between hospitals in both northern and southern Taiwan in the week after his appointment, believed that epidemic prevention work had helped by the facts that health-care workers had made significantly improved their knowledge about infection as well as preventive measures, and that the general public are also familiar with SARS to some extent.
Has he had any difficulty adapting from the role of an academic who likes to do research and write articles, to that of an official standing on the firing line and handling myriad epidemic-prevention measures?
PHOTO: YEH CHIH-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
Su said, "At this point, I have an unshirkable sense of mission as a member of the intelligentsia."
It is the social responsibility of an academic to contribute to the country and society at a time when the country is facing difficulties, and Su is a man who wants to do things. He hopes he won't have too many administrative strictures. He only hopes to do things well.
Su once said, of "truth, goodness and beauty," he likes beauty best because he feels that beauty is the sum of all things and events, and that this is also the case in the area of medicine. For this reason he has collected many works of art, including Ju Ming's (朱銘) sculpture Cattle herd, Li Keran's (李可染) painting Cowherd and buffalo and Hsu Pei-hung's (徐悲鴻) painting Woman washing clothes.
People who know him believe he is a sincere but stubborn person who never looks back or compromises once he feels something is the right thing to do. He admitted that he is "a relatively short-tempered person with not enough patience," but his meticulousness and pursuit of excellence are the good points about him.
Born in 1950, Su is a native of Hsuehchia Township in Tainan County. After graduating from National Tainan First Senior High School, he was admitted into National Taiwan University's College of Medicine.
His classmates in the college included former Department of Health chief Twu Shiing-jer (塗醒哲) and former CDC chief Chen Tzay-jinn (陳再晉).
Later he acquired a master's degree in pathology and then a doctorate. He also passed the Senior-grade Civil Service Examinations and qualified as a public-health physician.
After his graduation from NTU, he did his military service at the Tri-service General Hospital and then worked as a resident physician at the internal medicine department of the Veterans General Hospital.
Later he was a hematopathology researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle and an attending physician at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital.
He also served as a visiting assistant professor at Harvard University's Beth Israel Hospital, an associate professor in pathology at the NTU College of Medicine, a cancer researcher at the University of Birmingham in England and a pathology professor at the NTU College of Medicine.
His CV also features a tenure as a visiting scholar at the Microbiology and Tumor Biology Center of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, head of the pathology department at National Cheng Kung University, director of the Institute of Molecular Medicine and Institute of Clinical Medicine, head of the pathology department at NTU Medical College and a CDC consultant and director of the clinical research team at the National Health Research Institutes.
Su believes human nature is to be feared more than the virulent SARS virus. The epidemic has exposed the past implementation failures in Taiwan's local health-care and epidemic-prevention systems as well as hospital infection controls.
It has also exposed people's failure to report their medical histories honestly, thereby causing health-care workers to lower their guard. It has also revealed attempts by hospitals to delay their SARS case reports for the sake of face or due to overconfidence in their professional ability.
Su believes won't be difficult to fight SARS if everyone adopts an open and rational attitude.
He hopes to emulate the late Academia Sinica member Lee Chen-yuan (
Translated by Francis Huang
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
RSS