The faculty's private medical services are open to patients in public and private hospitals.

The faculty also provides private outpatient consultations. Most private patients are treated at the Prince of Wales Hospital, the university's teaching hospital and the Union Hospital, a private hospital in Sha Tin.

Professor Fok said the faculty wanted to expand its private medical services to provide more options for Hong Kong's people and to generate more revenue for research.

He said it was a good time to consider such a plan, to coincide with the redevelopment of the Prince of Wales Hospital.

Under the development scheme endorsed by the Hospital Authority earlier this month, the first phase of the project would be completed by 2010, adding an 800-bed block to the hospital.

The faculty hopes its private medical centre can be included in the building.

'We are not talking about building a big new block for a private hospital, perhaps we can start from having a ... centre occupying two to three floors in the hospital,' Professor Fok said. 'We will be happy if the Hospital Authority agrees to it.'

He said private medical services would be provided not only by the faculty's teaching staff, who are busy in teaching and providing services to the Hospital Authority.

'We hope that we can hire private doctors from outside, while the private centre could be run by a private investor. There are many ways to do it and we are looking into different options,' he said.

'First of all, we need a policy blessing from the government and the Hospital Authority,' he said.

The redevelopment of the Prince of Wales Hospital will also provide the faculty with an opportunity to improve its teaching environment, Professor Fok said.

'At present, the hospital is just too packed, teaching is difficult and infection control facilities are also insufficient,' he said.

'When we have a state-of-the-art hospital in five years, it means there would be more facilities for medical students to learn such [techniques] as microsurgery, robotic surgery and day care for patients.'

The faculty is celebrating its silver jubilee this year. At present, it has more than 200 teaching staff.

Professor Fok said he was proud that the faculty had trained more than 3,000 doctors over the past 25 years and many were outstanding members of the profession.

The faculty will make more resources available in biomedical sciences and public health.

'Our focus will be more on preventive medicine. We will do more research on how to deal with infectious and chronic diseases,' he said.

The curriculum will also include training on doctors' communication skills and life-long learning.