Hong Kong has moved a step closer to launching its third medical school, with the decision on the winning proposal to be unveiled in coming months, more than four decades after the second one began operating.
The three interested universities submitted their proposals to the government on Monday, with a task group of experts now given the job of examining their ideas.
The third school, mentioned by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu in his policy address in October last year, is expected to employ “innovative strategic positioning” that may complement the existing two.
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It should also help to address the chronic manpower crunch in the sector by increasing the number of doctors and supporting the city’s goal of becoming an international health and medical innovation hub.
The three candidates – the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Baptist University and Polytechnic University – have divulged some information about their proposals for the new school to be built in the Northern Metropolis, with medical experts, government advisers and lawmakers saying each has its strengths.
But which is the front runner?
Big names, intense competition
Finding experts to comment independently at this stage is not an easy task as the universities have been busy recruiting medical heavyweights to support their plans.
HKUST has signed up urologist and former Hospital Authority chairman Dr Edward Leong Che-hung and renowned Aids researcher Dr David Ho from Columbia University for its advisory team, while Professor Fok Tai-fai and Professor Raymond Liang Hin-suen, former medical deans of CUHK and HKU, will help to draft the curriculum.
Baptist University has also pulled in a string of experts to join its preparatory committee, from Dr Manson Fok, who helped set up Macau’s first medical school in 2019, to former HKU medical dean Professor Lee Sum-ping and Nobel laureate Michael Houghton.
PolyU, however, has not revealed if it has enlisted new experts to help with its proposal.
Others have joined the government task group on the new medical school, including ex-CUHK president Professor Joseph Sung Jao-yiu, Medical Council chairwoman Professor Grace Tang Wai-king and former HKU president Professor Tsui Lap-chee.
The task group is expected to hold interviews with the universities in the second quarter, before making recommendations on the best proposal to the government by year-end.
Commentators said each university had its unique strengths that could fit into Hong Kong’s future development, and the government would need to decide which areas the city should focus on.
“[The government] will need to assess whether the proposals by the three universities fit with Hong Kong’s focus,” Executive Council member Dr Lam Ching-choi said.
Which is the most innovative and tech savvy?
While the city’s first medical school was opened back in 1887 by what would later become the University of Hong Kong, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong launched the second one in 1981, all three candidates for the new institution have strong foundations in medicine and healthcare, albeit in different areas.
HKUST previously said it hoped to nurture doctors with basic engineering knowledge, which could allow them to apply artificial intelligence (AI) and big data in medicine.
It operates a state key laboratory in molecular neuroscience, led by HKUST president Professor Nancy Ip Yuk-yu, and the Hong Kong Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases at the Science Park, among a few life science-related facilities.
Last year, the university said it had invented a blood test to detect Alzheimer’s disease with an accuracy rate of more than 96 per cent.
Baptist University, which started Hong Kong’s first full-time undergraduate programme in Chinese medicine in 1998, highlighted its strength in the discipline. It said students at its proposed medical school would have some exposure to traditional Chinese medicine in their studies.
The government has also commissioned the university to operate Hong Kong’s first Chinese medicine hospital, which is expected to open in late 2025.
It also developed a botanical drug for a rare disease that was the first of its kind in Hong Kong to receive the “orphan drug designation” from the US Food and Drug Administration. The designation is granted only when evidence shows potential efficacy of a drug and such a move can help to speed up clinical development.
On Monday following its submission, the university said it would call the school the Frontier Integrative Medical College. It said the name reflected its commitment to pioneering advancements in medicine by integrating innovative technologies and cutting-edge research with Chinese and Western medicine.
PolyU also has a long history in the healthcare field but appears to be the most low profile of the three over its proposal, revealing few details. On Monday, it said it would help Hong Kong develop into an international medical training, research and innovation hub. It will hold a press conference on Wednesday on details of its proposed medical school.
University president Professor Teng Jin-guang previously expressed hope of developing a medical school that could leverage PolyU’s strength in “medical and engineering integration”, with its foundation in a wide range of health-related disciplines.
The university has been providing nursing courses since the late 1970s and became the first in Hong Kong to offer a degree programme in the discipline in 1990, which ranked 16th in the world this year.
It has also been training people in physiotherapy, occupational therapy, optometry, medical laboratory science and radiography for more than 40 years, and biomedical engineering since 2012.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, its medical laboratory also helped to conduct research on genetic sequencing to trace outbreaks of the virus in the community.
Former health secretary Dr Ko Wing-man said that while HKUST was strong in neuroscience and biomedical science, the training in rehabilitation science done by PolyU was also important, and Chinese medicine education at Baptist University was in line with the national strategy of pushing development of the profession.
“Those three universities have their reasons [for running a medical school], or else they would not raise their hands to show an interest,” he said.
“At the end, how the government determines it will depend on which area the government attaches higher importance to.”
Connections and training opportunities
The new medical school will be encouraged to foster global partnerships and the universities have been showing off their partners in and outside Hong Kong as part of the project.
HKUST has been the most active in announcing collaborations and appears to have more international elements in its partnerships than the other two universities.
It has signed agreements with more than 20 leading medical institutions and hospitals locally, nationally and internationally, spanning Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area, Beijing, the Yangtze River Delta, Central China, the UK and the US.
It has recruited Britain’s Imperial College London, which has a medical faculty ranked in the world’s top 10, to provide advice on establishing a new medical school.
In the past, Imperial helped Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University build up its school of medicine, the third in the city state.
The University of California San Diego’s school of medicine will also take part in student and faculty exchanges, and may offer clinical courses and internships to HKUST students. They may also collaborate on training programmes for resident doctors and specialists.
Within the Greater Bay Area, three mainland universities have agreed to allow their professors and experts to conduct regular lectures at HKUST, and provide Hong Kong students clinical practicum opportunities over the border.
Locally, the university is also partnering with HKSH Medical Group, which runs the private Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital among other facilities, and Hong Kong Adventist Hospital, for short-term clinical courses and practicum training.
Baptist University has set up a partnership with the First Affiliated Hospital under Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, which will provide advice on curriculum and infrastructure planning, as well as offering clinical training to students.
Locally, it has formed ties with Hong Kong Baptist Hospital, a private facility, which would be one of the primary teaching hospitals of the university. The university said more than 100 doctors from the private sector had also agreed to help with the teaching.
PolyU has also announced its collaboration with Sun Yat-sen University, under which they plan to jointly offer an eight-year dual bachelor’s degree programme in medicine. PolyU said the partnership was one of the important moves in establishing the medical school.
In the past few months, the university had also been forging partnerships with various mainland universities in areas of sports rehabilitation science and radiation oncology research.
Lawmaker Dr David Lam Tzit-yuen, who represents the medical and health services sector, said an institution collaborating with more overseas universities and hospitals would give them an edge in running a medical school.
“It will be easier for them to operate, as the syllabus is based on the others’ experience. It’s just like transplanting the others’ experience to yourself,” he said.
He also stressed the importance of working together with mainland institutions, which would allow Hong Kong students to have a better understanding of the medical system across the border.
“We hope Hong Kong can become an international medical hub, and therefore we will also need to understand how the mainland treats patients,” Lam said.
Which university can train doctors fastest?
The government gave the green light to the third medical school plan against the backdrop of the city’s long-standing problem of doctor shortages, amid officials’ ambition to turn Hong Kong into an international health innovation hub.
As of March last year, Hong Kong had around 16,000 doctors for a population of 7.5 million, giving a rough ratio of two per 1,000 people.
That is lower than the average rate in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development member countries, which was 3.4 in the most recent data.
In response to growing societal demands, both HKU and CUHK earlier this month announced that they would launch a four-year medical programme targeting people who already had a first degree.
The programmes, which will each take in 25 students and start in September this year, are two years shorter than the medical degree courses targeting secondary school graduates.
But adding places at the existing medical schools will not be enough to meet the demand for more doctors.
In October last year, city leader Lee gave his blessing to a third medical school, months after HKUST first voiced its interest in running such a facility, followed by PolyU and Baptist University.
Baptist University appears to be the most ready, saying it can start accepting medical students in August or September next year if selected.
HKUST aims to set up the new school within the current government term, which ends in mid-2027, while PolyU said its faculty could be established in five to six years.
But aside from disclosing partnerships with private hospitals and institutions outside Hong Kong, the trio have offered few other details about their interim education arrangements before a teaching hospital in Ngau Tam Mei, in the Northern Metropolis megaproject near the border, is in place in 2034 at the earliest.
How about a joint collaboration?
Experts from the medical field have expressed hopes that the new school will promote innovation and scientific research, one of 10 key parameters laid by the government task group, while training doctors who can deliver the primary role of treating patients.
Other criteria range from staffing and teaching facilities to the curriculum.
While each of the three universities have their own unique strengths, some experts have said a medical school jointly operated by the trio would be a better solution.
“Each university can be responsible for a few areas they specialise in,” former Academy of Medicine president Dr Donald Li Kwok-tung said.
“The three universities have their own expertise, so it is very difficult to make a selection.”
Lawmaker Chan Hoi-yan, a member of the Legislative Council’s health services panel, agreed that the new school could be set up through a collaborative effort, given each university had strengths that Hong Kong would need.
A joint medical school would be a first for Hong Kong. Under HKUST’s collaboration with its British and American partners, it remains unclear whether the model will be similar to Singapore’s Duke-NUS Medical School, which is jointly operated by the National University of Singapore and Duke University which both award degrees to graduates.
Some others take a more cautious view on collaboration between the three local institutions.
“The system in each university is different. If all three universities are involved, they will need to compete again – who will be the dean? And people from the three parties will need to be on the governing board,” Ko said.
“It would be very complicated.”
So which university is closest to the finishing line?
An insider said the task group had yet to decide on the weighting of the 10 key requirements it has laid down. If the three universities met all the requirements eventually, further discussions on the weighting would be needed to reach a decision, the insider added.
Government advisers and lawmakers have different expectations for the school.
“Apart from relieving the problem of the doctor shortage, as we are now talking about innovation and technology ... hopefully the third medical school can train more doctors interested in this area,” Exco member Lam said.
Lawmaker Chan said she hoped the chosen institution could nurture talent who specialised in developing new medical diagnostic methods, drugs and equipment.
She gave top molecular geneticist Professor Dennis Lo Yuk-ming, who is best known for his invention of the non-invasive prenatal testing, as an example.
“We need a medical school that can nurture someone like Lo. Other than knowing how to treat patients, the graduates may also need to have the medical knowledge which allows them to invent new diagnostic methods, drugs and treatments.”
But others also expressed a wish that the new school would not forget the basics for a medical graduate.
“Graduates of a medical school should be competent to be a doctor. This is the most important,” Dr David Lam said.
“We are not just training scientists who only know how to do research without the knowledge of treating patients.”
Lawmaker Chan said the new school should equip students with effective communication skills for interacting with patients and strong ethical standards.
“Other than requiring their language skills and knowledge in science to be excellent, we also need to focus on whether they are mature enough to handle life and death issues,” she said.
Li, a past president of the World Organisation of Family Doctors, called for all-rounded training that could produce graduates who were caring and valued ethics.
He said the new school should offer and encourage training in family and emergency medicine, areas which appeared to be less attractive to young doctors compared with other specialties such as oncology.
“Do not neglect the fact that those super specialists will not come into use without [family doctors],” Li said. “[The system] relies on detection at the primary level before patients can be referred to specialists.
“While we are talking about super technology, please don’t forget the basics.”
More from South China Morning Post:
- Hong Kong’s 2 medical schools to launch new graduate-entry programmes
- Hong Kong’s 2 medical schools to get funding for 60 extra degree places
- Some traditional Chinese medicine lessons at proposed Hong Kong medical school
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