Aston Tam Tin-chak went to Wall Street after he graduated and developed a promising career in investment banking. He rose through the ranks as an analyst, then as an associate - first with Bear Stearns, then with Morgan Stanley, which moved him back from the United States, where he went to university, to his native Hong Kong.
But something was wrong. Tam didn't feel satisfied. He'd always had an interest in medicine, and at the age of 31, he decided it was now or never if he wanted to make it as a doctor. 'I thought that would be more fulfilling personally,' Tam says. 'It was just a realisation that came a little bit late.'
So Tam jumped ship, and applied to Hong Kong's two medical schools: the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and the Chinese University (CUHK) of Hong Kong. Both rejected him at first, fearing he was too old.
He returned to investment banking for a year with ABN Amro, and rose to the rank of vice-president. But he applied for medical school again the next year - and got in. He entered CUHK in 2003, graduated last year and is now an intern in the surgical department at Prince of Wales Hospital.
'I have never regretted it once, though it is quite a lonely journey. In Hong Kong, I am the odd man out, always the oldest in the class,' Tam says. 'I thought I could keep going [in banking] but I wanted to find something more meaningful to me.'
Jobs in medicine may never have looked more attractive. Because of a shortage of professionals, graduates who stick out the degree programme are almost guaranteed work when they get out - CUHK and HKU both have an intake of about 160 medical students, and they're easily absorbed by the public health system for internships before deciding if they want to go into private practice.
CUHK also trains around 200 nurses per year. 'Due to the shortage of nurses, our graduates have no problem finding jobs,' says Janet Chow Yiu-wai, the assistant secretary of medicine at CUHK.