Bulletin Autumn 1978

Internal Force I will begin with the factors that lead to the decision to establish our Medical School. It is a traditional Chinese metaphysical principle that it takes the ‘yin' and the ‘yang' matched together to give birth to all things under the sun. Our Medical School is similarly engendered from two driving forces-internal and external. First the internal force. With our 333-acre campus and a student number of over 4,000, there is room for further development. The addition of a new Faculty of BusinessAdministration next step is obviously to launch medical education, which will satisfy the aspirations of this University both to render more service to the community and to develop further. As early as 1974, when I reported on the progress of this University from 1970 to 1974, I had expressed our intention to enter into the medical field. We were then psychologically and physically prepared to set up a Medical School. External Force The external force is the necessity for esta- blishing a second Medical School, as stipulated in the White Paper on the Further Development of Medical and Health Services published in 1974 which is in effect the development plan for the decade 1973— 1982. It recommended the building of four more hospitals, thus raising the hospital bed : population ratio from 4.25 to 5.5 per thousand, and a number of clinics in the developing townships. It was also proposed to regionalize the medical and health s with Hong Kong divided into five regions, each with a regional hospital, a number of district hospitals, including some government-assisted hospitals, specialist and general clinics. It was estimated that an additional 100 doctors per year would be required to provide adequate staffing for all the new projects when completed. To produce 100 more doctors a year, there were two obvious alternatives: to increase the intake of the Medical Faculty of the Hong Kong University by another 100 students or to establish a Medical School at this University. After lengthy and careful deliberations, the latter choice was made by the University and Polytechnic Grants Committee, the body responsible for advising Government on tertiary education. In arriving at their conclusion, the Committee took into consideration both the internal and external factors: viz. space is available in our campus for the addition of a Medical School; and a regional hospital and specialist clinic have to be built in Shatin which can be used for clinical teaching. We welcome the addition of medical teachers on our staff for they will doubtlessly add lustre and prestige to the University by their contribution to the advancement of medical science through their work and research, and fruitful exchange of expertise with their colleagues in other disciplines. Medical students too will be a great asset to our community. On our campus, they will have the opportunity to mix with others and take part in university life in full, unlike the isolation in some universities with separately situated medical schools. Medical Academic Advisory Committee Approval was given by the Government and the Legislature in 1974 to establish this new Medical School. But it was not until 1976 when Hong Kong recovered from economic recession that preparatory work actually began. A Medical Academic Advisory Committee was appointed by the University to advise on all aspects of the project. The Chairman of this committee, Professor W.H. Trethowan of Birmingham, will be joining us in tomorrow's session. Other members include some eminent medical educationalists of who is the co-sponsor of this seminar. The Advisory Committee has met three times in Hong Kong since 1976 and I will now give you a progress report of the committee's recommendations on the building projects and academic policies, and the execution of some of them to-date. A time schedule has been set on the premise that the regional hospital in Shatin, on which work has recently started, will be ready to admit patients and available for clinical teaching by the middle of 1983. Hence, admission of the first batch of pre- medical students will take place in the fall term of 1980, and pre-clinical students a year later, by the time a Basic Medical Sciences Building will be complete the Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony for this building tomorrow after the conclusion of this se also the hospital site or even the East New Territories region to be served by this hospital, within these two days. But now let me first describe briefly ourunde Course of Studies The course of studies will be for six years, consisting 14