License

If increasing the number of medical student does not meet the immediate demand of more doctors, what could be done?

At this point, it seems unbelievable to me that no one – neither medical professions nor layman – think of this simple straightforward solution: Why don’t we allow more overseas medical graduates practice in Hong Kong.

I could hear you gasp.

But I am serious. Yes, there are no fewer than a dozen of problems with this suggestion; nonetheless, it serves well for the short term problem. Why do we yell on one hand because of having not enough doctors, but, at the same time, we put up so many hurdles for graduates from medical schools in other countries – even if they are Hong Kong citizens?

Alas, I can understand why the medical council or our representative in the Legislative Council did not make such a suggestion – there is a conflict of interest. The unexplainable bit is why’s there no layman council member or patients’ right group put this up?

You may say a substantial proportion of these graduates have a horrible standard – I know just too well after organizing the local licentiate examination for some ten years. Nonetheless, there are also many candidates who have a reasonable standard but could not get through the complicated examination system lay down by the Council. After all, if the law allows our universities to hire overseas graduate as clinical staff by offering limited license for practice, why can’t we extend the law and allow Hospital Authority to do the same?

PS. From the government point of view, it is actually more cost-effective to facilitate the practice of overseas medical graduates than increasing the number of local medical students, because the former simply pay for their own expensive education.