'I am no longer young, and I have already achieved what I possibly can,' Ms Lau said. 'There is only a slim chance I'll get promoted further.'

She said her real reasons for further studies were to become a better person and provide patients better health management.

Unlike most PhD programmes, which are research-driven, this programme focuses on practice within the profession. Half of the credits are earned from taught subjects, while the balance credits come from the doctoral thesis.

Ms Lau said the programme had given her a strong foundation in health-care concept analysis and research.

'I like the way the programme provides structured courses. I think it is more practical for us clinicians,' Ms Lau said.

The programme, which PolyU claims is the first of its kind in Hong Kong, aims to help experienced health-care professionals further develop their competence for leadership roles in advanced practice. Ms Lau says she has been trained to acquire, appraise, synthesise and apply knowledge in her profession.

She keeps up to date by reading current medical journals and papers.

Ms Lau said studying in the digital age was a new experience for her. She said people of her generation were not used to accessing knowledge through the internet. The PolyU programme had helped her discover the potential of the internet, which had greatly enriched and deepened her knowledge.

The study course had also helped her hone her analytical skills.

'In the past I seldom questioned the journals I read. I didn't know how to. It's only with my postgraduate studies that I have realised the importance of critical thinking,' Ms Lau said. 'Whenever we encounter conflicting information, we have to use our judgment.'

Ms Lau's doctoral paper looks at ways to apply physiotherapy techniques to patients in hospital accident and emergency units so as to ease the pressure on heavily burdened hospital staff.

She is currently testing such a technique at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

In traditional hospital practice, physiotherapists are permitted to attend to patients in the wards, but not those in the accident and emergency units.

In the course of her research, Ms Lau has found that some patients in accident and emergency units have been discharged immediately after physiotherapy treatment.

Ms Lau hopes to demonstrate the long-term benefits of the new approach, beyond the short-term solution to crowded waiting rooms.

She said her studies had shown increasingly favourable results, and that doctors had approved of the new method.

These days it is standard practice in accident and emergency wards to ask for a physiotherapist, according to Ms Lau.

The programme has also helped Ms Lau expand her managerial capacity.

As a senior manager, she is expected to vet clinical research proposals submitted by her staff.

She said the research skills she had gained from the programme had trained her critical eye, and that she was now better able to assess proposals and make recommendations.

Ms Lau said that occasionally she would feel intimidated by the highly qualified young clinicians she found herself working with; some of them had two or three master's degrees, and they were savvy with computers and well informed through the internet.

But the PolyU health science programme had given her confidence and new knowledge, and had made her a better leader, she said. 'I try to set an example for my colleagues and urge them to further their studies. The Hospital Authority encourages us to,' she said.

Meanwhile, the part-time study experience has given Ms Lau a better understanding of the difficulties others face studying full- or part-time.

'I am a committed learner,' she said. 'Even when I'm relaxing at home, I am always looking at my study materials.

'Sacrificing leisure and family time is unavoidable.'

Throughout, Ms Lau has kept in mind the rewards of studying for the doctoral programme. 'All hardship will be forgotten, but what I gain will remain,' she said.