Page 50 - CASA Bulletin 2019 Vol 6 No 4

CASA Bulletin of Anesthesiology

the Medical Council. As The Hong Kong Academy of Medicine (HKAM) oversees all specialty
training in Hong Kong, all FHKCA would be granted FHKAM (Anaesthesiology) after gaining
FHKCA. Apart from joining the college, all fellows of the college must attend continuous
medical education (CME) and obtain enough CME points (90 points per 3 year cycle) for them
to stay in the college as fellows. Various structured training programs and workshops have been
organized by the HKCA since the establishment of the college to help with training of trainees
and fellows. In 2001, the first clinical stimulation centre in Hong Kong known as the Institute
of Clinical Simulation (ICS) was set up at the North District Hospital to provide training
courses in resuscitation and management of crisis in anaesthesia. Every year around September
toNovember, HKCA would jointly organize an Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM) with the

SAHKwhen outstanding Specialist Anesthesiologists from all over the world are invited to
deliver lectures and participate in the symposiums. Practical workshops in various aspects such
as airway management, ultrasound guided vascular access and nerve blocks, and chronic pain
management techniques are held.

The Training Program

At present there are 2 medical schools in Hong Kong, one at the University of Hong Kong
and the other at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. With escalating demands for doctors,
the number of medical graduates from both Universities has increased to around 300 per school
each year. Some overseas doctors are allowed to practice in Hong Kong once they have passed
the licentiate examination. A small number of overseas trained doctors can work mainly at the
Universities in Hong Kong with limited registration on contract terms. The medical schools
provide 5 years of undergraduate training and after obtaining the MB BS or MB ChB, all

medical graduates are rotated to various large HA hospitals to do their intern year. During
that year, each intern would be rotated through 4 terms of 3 months each. The specialties they
can choose are the traditional ones and does not include anesthesia. If the intern would like
to know about anaesthesia, they need to apply to do an attachment at one of the Departments
of Anaesthesiology. After the intern year, almost all the doctors are employed by HA. About
half would get training posts in their preferred specialties. The rest of them would be trained
to become family physicians. Anaesthesia is one of the specialties young doctors like as the
life style and post training prospect are good. All specialty training in Hong Kong is a 6 year
program. Most would regard the first 3 year as basic training and the second 3 years as advanced
training. As the fellowship examination failure rate is high, most trainees spend 7 to 8 years to
complete the whole program. Before training is completed, all trainees are required to pass 2

examinations (intermediated and final). They need to have all their cases logged. One project
(research based or case report) need to be submitted. Before gaining the fellowship, they need
to go through an Exit Assessment. Trainees must register with the specialty college they are
training towards. The HKCA trainees can choose anaesthesia stream or intensive care stream. If
they want to do both, extra years are required to fulfill all the requirements. Pain management is

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