COPY
(F. 1880/399/10)
MH
61459
3ir,
53611/4/423
General Council of
·202
Medical Education and Registration of the United Kingdom,
44 Halla 3treet,
Portland Place, W. 1.
8th April, 1943.
I have laid before the President of the Council the Department's letter (F 975/399/10) of February 26th, with enclosure, about the registration in the Medical Register kept by the Council of students of the University of Hong Kong who qualify after going through courses of instruction and examinations in Free China, and I am directed by him to say that the question will be carefully and sympathetically considered by the Executive Committee of the Council, to whom the administration of Part II of the Medical Act, 1886, has been delegated by the Council, at their meeting in May.
2.
Since medical degrees granted by the University are registrable in the Register, it appears to the President as at present advised that if any entity which can legally or constructively be re,arded as the University survives, the procedure raising least difficulty would be that the authorities of that entity should
(1) Recognise, so far as they can properly do so,
courses of study and examinations gone through in Free China as equivalent to the comparable courses and examinations which would normally have been gone through by the students affected in Hong Kong;
(2) Grant degrees purporting to be degrees of the University of Hong Kong to students who have gone through courses of study and examinations so recognised (including a final or qualifying examination in medicine, surgery, and midwifery).
3. Under such a procedure holders of degrees so ranted would be and remain eligible for registration in the Register.
There is no thing in the Medical Acts which would make it necessary for registration to be effected within any specific time after gradua tion, and it need not be effected until the graduates were in a position to practise in British territories.
4. If, however, the University of Hong Kong has for the time being ceased to exist and cannot be deemed to exist, the President anticipates that it may be desirable to explore the possibility that degrees purporting to be degrees of the University should be granted by H.M. Movernment in the United . Kingdom, on the analogy of the procedure followed by the Czechoslovakian Government in this country in granting the degree entitled M.D. Czechoslovakia in lieu of the degrees of particular Universities in Czechoslovakia.
5. Either of these alternatives would, the President feels. probably commend itself to the Executive Committee of the Council as preferable to a procedure under which it became necessary to open the question of (1) the application of Part II of the Act of 1886 to Free China; and (2) the recognition under section 13 of the Act of degrees granted in Free China.
The Under-Secretary of State,
Foreign Office.
/ 6.
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