I refer to the letter by Dr Stephen Wong, “To ease Hong Kong’s doctor shortage, expand licensing exam quota” ( November 10 ). I am sorry that he has faced so many unreasonable obstacles in trying to help ease the shortage of doctors in Hong Kong. The limit on the number of candidates sitting the licensing examination casts doubt on the alacrity with which the Medical Council is addressing the crisis. Since 1997, when the licensing examination was set up, the influx of foreign medical graduates to supplement the supply of doctors has been strongly discouraged, if not curtailed. The profession, the government and the statutory bodies have failed to see the toxicity of such an action. Only when the shortage became critical have the laws governing the registration of doctors been recently relaxed . The reasons for creating such a closed shop is anybody’s guess. The usual specious argument against importing foreign doctors is that it lowers the local standard of practice. What is the local standard? Is it so unique and lofty that all the doctors from the rest of the world have to be measured against it? Each doctor has a finite amount of professional knowledge. It is essential that he does not exceed his limitations. It is not just the expertise but also the attitude that counts. A doctor must be prudent, put his patient’s interest first and refer the patient to a specialist when the doctor’s professional knowledge is found wanting. Abiding by medical ethics is equally important and this cannot be assessed by an examination. At the final examinations of both local medical schools and the exit examinations of the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine, there is, to my knowledge, an abundance of examiners from the United Kingdom. This is to ensure that the standards in Hong Kong and the UK are comparable. So at least UK graduates might be exempt from the licensing examination. Moreover, these graduates of foreign medical schools are often local residents who have spent millions of dollars on getting such an education. By going overseas, they leave sought-after opportunities for others to pursue a medical curriculum locally. Why, then, should they be exiled? Dr Ko Kai Ming, Central Improve eHealth app by enabling easier exchange of data Following its launch in 2016, the eHealth record sharing system has enrolled more than 4.39 million Hong Kong residents as of this October. This January, the government introduced an eHealth smartphone app which has been installed by over 1.6 million users. Yet, the Food and Health Bureau does not track the number of monthly active users of this app, making it difficult to assess the actual usage of the new tool. One important feature of the app is its self-health management module enabling users to monitor their blood pressure and blood glucose. Yet, the app expects patients to manually enter the data, a process that is prone to error. The government should further develop the app so that it can exchange data with smartphone systems such as Apple Health and Huawei Health as well as smart medical devices that offer machine-readable data. We are surprised that the blood pressure and sugar data collected by the app is not uploaded to the patients’ eHealth records. The eHealth developers should connect the app to its main database as soon as possible so that health care professionals can benefit from patients’ efforts to manage their health. Likewise, patients’ blood pressure and sugar data collected during their hospital visits should also be shared through the eHealth app. We understand that the eHealth app will be further developed in phases, with more functions in the pipeline. We hope the Food and Health Bureau can keep the public informed of its plans for the eHealth app and collaborate with the private sector to ensure its success. Jiayi Zhang and Xiaoyu Qu, Kowloon Tong