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In a bid to increase the supply of doctors through medical training places, the Government increased the number of
University Grants Committee funded medical training spaces by 90% from 250 in 2005/06 to 470 in 2016/17 (HKSARG, 2019e).
The number of medical training places will be further increased by 60 each fiscal year from 2019/20 to 2021/22 (HKSARG,
2019e). These efforts are intended to alleviate Hong Kong’s doctor shortage in the medium-to-long-term.
Various measures have been implemented as an effort to increase Hong Kong’s doctor supply through the
admission of non-locally trained doctors. For instance, the Medical Council of Hong Kong (MCHK) increased the frequency
of the MCHK Licensing Examination from one to two sittings in 2014 to provide more opportunities for non-locally trained
doctors to enter the local system. In 2018, the MCHK established the Virtual Education Resource Centre and accordingly set up
a Licensing Examination Information Portal (LEIP) to improve the transparency of the Licensing Examination (LEIP, 2018e). In the
same year, as an attempt to make the terms of working in Hong Kong more attractive, the validity and renewal period of Limited
Registration was prolonged from a period not exceeding one year to a period not exceeding three years (HKSARG, 2019d).
In 2019, the MCHK introduced flexible arrangements for the 12-month post-Licensing Examination period of assessment,
such that non-locally trained doctors who have i) passed the MCHK Licensing Examination; ii) hold a specialist qualification
comparable to a Fellowship of the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine (HKAM; or referred to as the Academy) Colleges; and
iii) have completed at least three years of full-time employment in the Hospital Authority (HA), the Department of Health (DH), the
University of Hong Kong (HKU), or The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) can have their period of assessment generally
reduced to two days (LEIP, 2019b, 2019c). Furthermore, from 2020/21 onwards, candidates applying to the post of Service
Resident at the Hospital Authority under Limited Registration with pre-intermediate level of qualifications will be considered for
the specialties of Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, and Paediatrics (Hospital Authority, 2020b).

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