Heart & Soul Gens de cœur Whoa Nelly! A s a child in Hong Kong, Nelly Ng accompanied her establishing diplomatic relations between Canada and China. pediatrician father on after-hours house calls to children “I knew I could play a role, introducing her to the governwho lived in slums. ment of Canada and helping her learn how to approach poten“We rode in comfort in a car and arrived in these areas tial financial supporters,” he said. “We made a lot of contacts.” where many people were crammed into small quarters and As its most recent endeavour, the foundation, which is children had to run out of the house to get water,” recalls funded with $1.8-million in donations and pledges, has taken Ng, a family physician with a busy practice in Scarborough, advanced imaging technology developed by the National ReOnt. “These were children like me, but I didn’t have to search Council to the site of the massive Three Gorges dam worry about necessities. As a child, you wonder about this on the Yangtze river. The dam, scheduled to be completed in unfairness.” 2003, will flood 80 000 hectares of land Ng, 49, says her father was her role and displace 1.5 million people. The model and went out of his way to help Zhang Fei Temple, which is in the impoverished patients, a “vivid life lesflood path, has to be moved and reson” that Ng learned well. Since graduassembled. To aid this effort, Ng’s ating from McMaster medical school in foundation is donating advanced scanHamilton in 1978, she has thrown herning equipment. The technology allows self into charitable activities — sitting for ancient pieces of art to be captured on boards and raising money for organiin 3-D, with the information digitized. zations like Scarborough’s Grace and “For archival purposes, this creates a General hospitals and the Toronto permanent record,” explains Ng. If an Symphony Orchestra. item is damaged in the move the 3-D Eight years ago, she established her digital image can guide the restoration. own philanthropic foundation, a move The scanning technology will also allow inspired by her first trip to China. Her for a “virtual” preservation of some parents had fled the Communist regime other treasures, including 3000 years of in China for Hong Kong before Ng was records of flood and drought carved born, and her visit was planned as a into the earth, which will be lost forever respite from her hectic life, a quiet holibecause of the dam. day with her husband. After visiting a As well as bringing Canadian techmuseum, she was “literally struck in awe Dr. Nelly Ng: preserving China’s history nology to China, the foundation has to see the magnificent treasures, housebrought China to Canada, sponsoring 2 hold items created more than 2500 years ago. These were major exhibition tours here — Masterpieces of 20th-Century not just artifacts, they reflected man’s wisdom and ingenu- Chinese Painting and Jade, the Ultimate Treasure of Ancient ity.” But the items that so impressed her were at risk — mu- China (see CMAJ 2001;165(4):456-7). seum preservation techniques were not advanced in China, “It dawned on me that if we are setting programs to help nor was conservation a priority in the rapidly developing conserve Chinese art, we should bring some of it here for country. people to see,” says Ng. “More than 150 000 people saw the On her way home to Canada, she began to wonder how painting exhibit while it was here.” she could help. “Canada is not an old country,” she mused, Both Ng and O’Connell, who has retired from active duty “but we are blessed with technology.” and is now an emeritus founding cochair, like to think the She decided to enlist the help of Martin O’Connell, a for- foundation is also providing a role model in China, where mer federal cabinet minister with whom she had worked in nongovernmental organizations are rare. an outreach program at the Grace Hospital in the 1970s, Ng devotes every Wednesday to her charitable activities, when he was a member of Parliament. “She phoned me one but makes up for it the rest of the week, employing 2 shifts of day after I’d retired and said she had a favour to ask,” recalls office staff as she works her long days as a family physician. O’Connell, who is now 85. About half her patients are of Chinese origin — she speaks The next thing he knew he was cochair, with Ng, of the both Mandarin and Cantonese — with many of the rest beCanadian Foundation for the Preservation of Chinese Cul- ing immigrants who must bring English-speaking relatives to tural and Historical Treasures. “The subject matter interested translate for them. “They know that I have the patience,” me, as it did [Ng],” says O’Connell, who was instrumental in says Ng. — Ann Silversides, Toronto 1568 JAMC • 27 NOV. 2001; 165 (11) © 2001 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors