China and Eastern Asia How do US graduates begin practice in Hong Kong?

Equal · Apr 6, 2006

Hi, I will be a US medical graduate who will complete residency training in the US. I was wondering what are steps to take in order to practice some medicine part time in HK, Macau, and Guangdong? I am interested in both non-salary volunteering as well as possibly working there.

gecko · Apr 8, 2006

Equal said:
Hi, I will be a US medical graduate who will complete residency training in the US. I was wondering what are steps to take in order to practice some medicine part time in HK, Macau, and Guangdong? I am interested in both non-salary volunteering as well as possibly working there.

I too would like some insight on this topic! 😕

HongKongMD · Apr 16, 2006

I have been trying for three years to find out about MD practicing in HK. So far these are the information I found.

1. For foreign doctors to practice in HK, you must take the licensing exam offer by the HK Medical Council. This exam is a three steps exam. The passing rate is 5-9%.

2. In order to be eligible to take the licensing exam you must complete 5 or more years of medical education. This means for US medical students, we need to do one additional year of internship in order to qualify to even take the exam.

3. After passing the exam, you are required to do one year of internship in a hospital in HK.

I will be doing a one month rotation in HK this coming July, so I will be able to talk to more people there and find out more. Please share any sort of information you have regarding this matter. Thanks!

Equal · Apr 18, 2006

Before taking the exam, do US residency year(s) count?
What if you are a specialist in the US? Does that one year of training in HK suffice for you to be the specialist?

HongKongMD said:
I have been trying for three years to find out about MD practicing in HK. So far these are the information I found.

1. For foreign doctors to practice in HK, you must take the licensing exam offer by the HK Medical Council. This exam is a three steps exam. The passing rate is 5-9%.

2. In order to be eligible to take the licensing exam you must complete 5 or more years of medical education. This means for US medical students, we need to do one additional year of internship in order to qualify to even take the exam.

3. After passing the exam, you are required to do one year of internship in a hospital in HK.

I will be doing a one month rotation in HK this coming July, so I will be able to talk to more people there and find out more. Please share any sort of information you have regarding this matter. Thanks!

WaZoBia · Apr 18, 2006

you might wanna check out the link

http://www.mchk.org.hk

🙂

j-med · May 14, 2006

Equal said:
Before taking the exam, do US residency year(s) count?
What if you are a specialist in the US? Does that one year of training in HK suffice for you to be the specialist?

bump

ams · May 16, 2006

that's exactly my quandary right now. i have completed 4 years of medical school in the philippines with the degree of doctor of medicine, in the hopes of being able to practice in the US but my husband's career took us here to hong kong instead. i really want to further my medical education here so i was planning to take the hong kong medical licensure exam. unfortunately, i am not qualified as i only finished FOUR YEARS of medical school. i tried turning to Hong Kong University to help me out with my 5th year of medical training so i can take the exam. this is what they have to say:

Our Admissions Committee would consider the application beyond the
first year on condition that the syllabuses that you have studied are
the SAME as our students. But I don't think the syllabuses of your
medical school is the same as ours. As a matter of fact, we haven't
admitted the student beyond the first year for the past 11
years. Please also note that all applicants, both local and
overseas, are required to have a good working knowledge of English
and Cantonese.

Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine
The University of Hong Kong

so as you can see right now, i am completely confounded. i have no idea where to go in order to take that extra FIFTH year of medical training just so i can take the licensure exam here.

somebody please help! thank you!

j-med · May 17, 2006

ams said:
that's exactly my quandary right now. i have completed 4 years of medical school in the philippines with the degree of doctor of medicine, in the hopes of being able to practice in the US but my husband's career took us here to hong kong instead. i really want to further my medical education here so i was planning to take the hong kong medical licensure exam. unfortunately, i am not qualified as i only finished FOUR YEARS of medical school. i tried turning to Hong Kong University to help me out with my 5th year of medical training so i can take the exam. this is what they have to say:

Our Admissions Committee would consider the application beyond the
first year on condition that the syllabuses that you have studied are
the SAME as our students. But I don't think the syllabuses of your
medical school is the same as ours. As a matter of fact, we haven't
admitted the student beyond the first year for the past 11
years. Please also note that all applicants, both local and
overseas, are required to have a good working knowledge of English
and Cantonese.

Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine
The University of Hong Kong

so as you can see right now, i am completely confounded. i have no idea where to go in order to take that extra FIFTH year of medical training just so i can take the licensure exam here.

somebody please help! thank you!

i emailed them sometime ago and got that exact same reply.. makes you wonder if they just copy and paste that to all foreign students trying to get into their program...

in any case, since you already have a doctor of medicine degree, do you think you can just study for the licensure exam and take it in september?

check out the mchk link above, I think somewhere embedded in those not so easy to navigate pages, there's something about how each foreign country medical degree correlates to the hk system.

and have you tried emailing CUHK? I only tried HKU so far, maybe CU may give us a different answer? hmm....

let us know how it goes. good luck!

ams · May 18, 2006

hi j-med! nice to know we're on the same boat. jeesh, you're right. they (HKU) probably do have a template reply to inquiries like ours. haven't gotten around to asking CUHK. so discouraged was i that i just don't think i can handle another "rejection". but i think i will ask them, sometime this week. *crossing fingers*

as for the HK licensing exam, i contacted the medical council already and they explicitly told me that i need FIVE YEARS of medical education, irregardless of where i get that 5th year before i take the exam. will try to go over the link you suggested to try and find a loophole in their system.

🙁 i'm this close to packing my bags and taking the next trip home. can't bear to leave my family here in HK though.

anyway, thanks so much for the encouragement. GOOD LUCK to you too! 🙂

tongnicole · May 29, 2006

Equal said:
Hi, I will be a US medical graduate who will complete residency training in the US. I was wondering what are steps to take in order to practice some medicine part time in HK, Macau, and Guangdong? I am interested in both non-salary volunteering as well as possibly working there.

I'm a medical student getting ready to go back to HK for my "last summer." I'm interested in practising in HK as well, that is after my residency here in the US (so I still have a few years). I plan on visiting the Council to get more information about the exam and all the procedures when I'm in HK. I also have friends from high school back in Hong Kong who are in HKU Medical School. So I'll get some info. from them as well. I'll keep you guys posted on what they have to say. I really don't like their website which is hard to navigate and not informative, and this is what I've found to be helpful so far: http://www.mchk.org.hk/annual/eng/2003/4.pdf

Good luck to everyone!

Equal · May 29, 2006

You know, it's not necessarily making a living over there. I was thinking like, what if I want to go volunteer to help poor patients in HK, Macau, and China. The problem is, all three places have different regulations (and although you fulfill China's regulations, you still do not qualify to practice in hk or macau) even though they all belong to one country. This is what sucks, because especially in China and Macau, their healthcare system is horrible and could use some good quality US graduate physicians to volunteer once in awhile, yeh the regulations are so complicated that they discourage such practice.

tongnicole said:
I'm a medical student getting ready to go back to HK for my "last summer." I'm interested in practising in HK as well, that is after my residency here in the US (so I still have a few years). I plan on visiting the Council to get more information about the exam and all the procedures when I'm in HK. I also have friends from high school back in Hong Kong who are in HKU Medical School. So I'll get some info. from them as well. I'll keep you guys posted on what they have to say. I really don't like their website which is hard to navigate and not informative, and this is what I've found to be helpful so far: http://www.mchk.org.hk/annual/eng/2003/4.pdf

Good luck to everyone!

tongnicole · May 30, 2006

I totally understand your frustration. Going back to HK is hard enough to figure out, let alone Macau and China. We do have different regulations, one is because HK was British and has more advanced health care quality; two is that China is still reluctant to open its society to the West in general. I'm not saying it's impossible, but there are obstacles to get to where you want to go. I just re-read your first message. I'm actually going to Guangzhou for 5 weeks for an acupuncture course at the Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. They also have an international college there. If you are interested, I can see what I may be able to find out. But do let me know soon, or email me, since I'm leaving the US within days. I might not have internet access when I'm in Guangzhou.

Equal said:
You know, it's not necessarily making a living over there. I was thinking like, what if I want to go volunteer to help poor patients in HK, Macau, and China. The problem is, all three places have different regulations (and although you fulfill China's regulations, you still do not qualify to practice in hk or macau) even though they all belong to one country. This is what sucks, because especially in China and Macau, their healthcare system is horrible and could use some good quality US graduate physicians to volunteer once in awhile, yeh the regulations are so complicated that they discourage such practice.

China and Eastern Asia How do US graduates begin practice in Hong Kong?

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gecko

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