Letters | Foreign medical graduates are welcome in Hong Kong, but don’t blame local doctors for health policy failures
- Local doctors have every incentive to ease pressure on Hong Kong’s overstretched health care system, but a dual-track system for entry would work better
Olivia, the Hong Kong-born daughter of a surgical colleague, is a young neurologist working in Singapore. She graduated from London a few years ago and, having settled down there, she didn’t care much to return. But last year she received a job offer to move either to Singapore or Hong Kong.
Home had nostalgic appeal, but there was no guarantee she would obtain a full licence and be able to complete her specialty training in Hong Kong – she would not be the same as the rest of us unless she passed the licensing examination. Why bother? She picked Singapore.
Jeremy is a gastroenterologist. We worked together for years. Having scored top marks in his school certificate exam back in the 1980s, he won a scholarship to study medicine in Cambridge. He later returned to become one of us without examination. Had a licensing exam been required, he would certainly have passed it with flying colours, but why would he have come here had there been more inviting choices? Are we losing international vision?
We welcome foreign medical graduates provided they are up to standard, but is one local examination the only acceptable standard?
But doctors suffer too when the waiting time is long: the workload is incredible.