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Following is a question by the Dr Hon Pan Pey-chyou and a written reply by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today (June 9):
Question:
The Medical Council of Hong Kong (MCHK) has indicated that all medical graduates who wish to register as medical practitioners with MCHK, other than graduates of The University of Hong Kong and The Chinese University of Hong Kong, are required to pass MCHK's Licensing Examination and successfully complete a period of pre-registration internship training and assessment in approved hospitals or institutions. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council of:
(a) the number of candidates who sat the Licensing Examination last year and, among them, the number of those who passed the examination;
(b) the five countries or regions where most of the candidates, who sat and passed the Licensing Examination in each of the past three years, had completed their medical undergraduate education, as well as their percentages in the total numbers of candidates (set out in Table 1); and
(c) the respective numbers and percentages of medical graduates of mainland universities and mainland qualified doctors among the candidates who sat and passed the Licensing Examination in each of the past three years (set out in Table 2)?
Reply:
President,
The Medical Council of Hong Kong (the Medical Council) is an independent statutory body established under the Medical Registration Ordinance. It is empowered to handle registration and disciplinary regulation of medical practitioners in Hong Kong. One of the main functions of the Medical Council is to administer and conduct the Licensing Examination for medical graduates from non-local medical schools.
With the exception of graduates of The Chinese University of Hong Kong and The University of Hong Kong, all persons who wish to register as medical practitioners with the Medical Council, regardless of whether they have obtained qualifications to practise as a medical practitioner outside Hong Kong, are required to sit the Medical Council's Licensing Examination and successfully complete a 12-month internship training in Hong Kong before they can register as medical practitioners in Hong Kong. To be eligible for taking the Licensing Examination, they must satisfy the requirements set out in section 7A of the Medical Registration Ordinance, Cap. 161 of the Laws of Hong Kong. Under section 7A, it is stipulated in subsection (1)(b)(i) that an applicant must satisfy the Medical Council that at the time of the application, he/she has satisfactorily completed not less than five years full time medical training of a type approved by the Medical Council and is the holder of a medical qualification acceptable to the Medical Council.
The Licensing Examination of the Medical Council aims to ensure that those who wish to register as medical practitioners in Hong Kong after having received medical training outside Hong Kong have attained a professional standard comparable to that of local medical graduates. This is to safeguard the quality of our medical services and hence public health. The Medical Council will ensure that the standard of the Licensing Examination is consistent with that adopted by the two faculties of medicine in Hong Kong for assessing their medical graduates. Papers of the Licensing Examination are also prepared by the teaching staff appointed by the two faculties of medicine and vetted by the Examination Sub-Committee of the Licentiate Committee under the Medical Council.
The Licensing Examination is held in Hong Kong annually and consists of three parts, namely, Examination in Professional Knowledge (Part I), Proficiency Test in Medical English (Part II), and Clinical Examination (Part III). Candidates are required to have passed or have been exempted from Part I and Part II before they are allowed to take Part III. Candidates must have passed all three parts of the Licentiate Examination in order for them to be regarded as having passed the Licensing Examination. A pass in Part I will be valid for five years. Candidates are required to pass the remaining parts of the Licensing Examination within the validity period; otherwise, the pass obtained in Part I will become invalid. No validity period is set for a pass obtained in Part II.
Our replies to various parts of the question are as follows:
(a) The number of candidates who sat various parts of the Licensing Examination and among them, the number of those who passed the examination last year are set out in Table 3.
(b) The respective numbers of candidates who sat and passed various parts of the Licensing Examination from 2007 to 2009 (by the top five countries/regions where the candidates received their medical education) are set out below:
Part 1: Examination in Professional Knowledge are set out in Table 4.
Part 2: Proficiency Test in Medical English are set out in Table 5.
Part 3: Clinical Examination are set out in Table 6.
(c) The number of medical graduates from the Mainland who sat and passed the Licensing Examination over the past three years is set out in part (b). As candidates are not required to have first acquired a qualification for medical practice outside Hong Kong in order to be eligible for taking the Licensing Examination held pursuant to the Medical Registration Ordinance, the Medical Council has not collected information on whether candidates had acquired a qualification for medical practice outside Hong Kong (including the Mainland) before they sat the Licensing Examination.
Ends/Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Issued at HKT 17:28
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