Pauline Yeung Pui-ning. Several hospital projects will be completed within the next one to two years, such as the Grantham Hospital redevelopment, the new Clinical Block I of Queen Mary Hospital and the future Chinese Medicine Hospital, which will provide opportunities for growth and help to ease the clinical placement challenges. But it is still not quite enough. ‘We are in dialogue with the HA and the Health Bureau to see if there are opportunities to increase the number of designated teaching hospitals. We are also working with Gleneagles Hospital Hong Kong to set up a clinical trials unit in the hospital to expand its capacity for conducting industry-sponsored clinical trials,’ Professor Wong said. Recruitment of clinical professoriate is also crucial to expanding capacity and this is happening across several dimensions. HKUMed is recruiting new staff across the board, as mentioned above, and revisiting and enhancing clinical honorary appointments. Discussion is also underway among the HA, the Health Bureau, the University and the two medical schools of Hong Kong on possible dual track employment between the HA and the medical schools. ‘We hope a flexible employment mechanism will create synergy in strengthening both the medical education capacity and clinical workforce,’ Professor Wong said. The University has also helped by increasing the cap on overall practice-track professoriate staff who are clinicians from 20 to 50 per cent. ‘This gives us more room to grow our staff size not only for the clinical practice track, but also practice tracks in Nursing, Pharmacy and Pharmacology, Chinese Medicine and Public Health to support the continuous growth plan of the Faculty,’ she said. But hospitals and clinical staff therein are not her only foci – primary healthcare is another priority, in line with government developments in this area. The sub-deanery has beefed up the role of the Faculty in several District Health Centres and established a Comprehensive Primary Healthcare Collaboratory (CPHC) to foster primary healthcare collaboration with HKUMed across six domains – clinical, medico-social collaboration, policy, public health, education and health informatics. ‘Currently, various schools and departments are contributing to primary healthcare undergraduate and postgraduate training, and working on community and primary healthcare projects. We envisage that the CPHC will offer a more concerted effort to encourage synergy and collaboration. We will be organising a Primary Healthcare Summit later in the year,’ she added. The sub-deanery’s final interest is in the opportunities in the region. The HKU-Shenzhen Hospital, now in its 12th year of operation, is the ideal springboard into the GBA – it is expanding to 3,000 beds and building a second research block. The Hetao ShenzhenHong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Zone has also allocated space to the hospital for a translational medicine research centre. ‘We have an advantage because we have got a head start in the region through the HKU-Shenzhen Hospital, which served as a pilot for many cross-boundary healthcare initiatives. We will also work with the University in exploring future healthcare initiatives in the Northern Metropolis and the GBA,’ Professor Wong said. ↓Clinical training at HKUMed remains at the forefront of medicine to accommodate Hong Kong's evolving clinical needs. ‘We hope a flexible employment mechanism will create synergy in strengthening both the medical education capacity and clinical workforce.’ Professor Victoria Wong Wing-yee 15 HKUMed News Summer 2024
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