TNAG-0507-FCO40-572-Development-of-medical-and-health-services-in-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 219

G. F. 323

CONFIDENTIAL ##

機密

The University of Hong Kong

9.

3

The Medical School at the University of Hong Kong preceded in time the University itself. It is a large, reputable Medical School with considerable experience and expertise: and the administrative capability of the University is strong. H.K.U. would be able to make a fairly early start and would have no problems of GMC recognition. It was inevitable therefore that consideration should be given to handling the medical expansion

in H.K.U.

10. H.K.U.Medical School however is already large by world standards. It has an annual intake of 150 students, which is greater than that of any of the twelve London medical schools, of many United Kingdom medical schools outside London, and of many American schools. United Kingdom schools, it is true, are being expanded, but the desirable size recommended by the recent Royal Commission on Medical Education is an entry of 150-200. To add 100 students to the H.K.U. School would give it 250, and make it necessary to duplicate all its clinical teaching facilities in Kowloon. This would in practice involve converting the Queen Elizabeth Hospital into a major teaching hospital, and introducing some teaching in the Princess Margaret Hospital. Substantial building alterations would be required, and serious disturbance, including redundancies of Government medical staff, ensue, for at the senior level Government staff and University staff are not freely inter-changeable. The end result would be an over-large medical school, with dispersed clinical teaching, which would be very difficult to administer and to maintain as a coherent institution.

11. Furthermore if H.K.U. undertook the whole medical expansion, it would for practical reasons have to accept the Dental School as well, for in their first (pre-clinical) year dental students study the same subjects as medicals, and ought to be taught in the pre-clinical departments of the medical school. Separate dental pre-clinical departments would be too small to be viable both economically and for the recruitment of qualified staff. On the positive side there could be an early extra intake of about 30 or a little more into the pre-clinical areas by a considerable re-organisation of the teaching time-tables and utilisation of resources on a shift basis. However with a combined medical and dental intake of over 300 the pre-clinical school would be massive, larger indeed than any in the U.K. Any later expansion from such a base, which the next ten-year plan may well call for, would be precluded.

12.

There are other considerations that weigh against the development of the H.K.U. Medical School (with dentistry) to this large size. It would for some time to come confine all Hong Kong medical training within one school. The H.K.U. Medical School is long established and excellent but the opportunity of innovating and of developing a somewhat different competitive tradition, such as is being given to the new medical schools in Britain (e.g. Nottingham, Southampton, Leicester) should be accepted.

/13...

CONFIDENTIAL #B