Recruitment and training of psychiatrists in Hong Kong: What puts medical students off psychiatry – An international experience

Abstract

The Hospital Authority employs over 60,000 staff and manages 41 public hospitals and institutions, 47 specialist outpatient clinics and 74 general outpatient clinics throughout Hong Kong. It received HK$41.14 billion (£3.475 billion) of funding from the government in the year 2012 to 2013, which represented 92% of its funding income (). This public healthcare system uses 3% of the Hong Kong gross domestic product (GDP) to provide 88% of inpatient services and 28% outpatient services locally, while the private sector provides only 12% of inpatient services and 72% of outpatient services with 2.3% of GDP. There is a heavy reliance on the public sector to provide healthcare to most of the patients requiring more intensive hospitalization. Hong Kong currently only has about 280 specialists in psychiatry serving a population of over 7 million people, of whom 90 work in the private sector. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) Mental Health Atlas 2011 country profiles (), the number of psychiatrists per 100,000 population is 4.39, compared to 12.76 in Australia, 10.1 in Japan, 5.12 in Korea, and 2.81 in Singapore. There is a shortage of psychiatrists, especially in the public mental health sector, which urgently needs to be tackled. This article looks at the current trend in psychiatry teaching and recruitment from medical school and the training scheme provided by the Hong Kong College of Psychiatrists.

Declaration of interest: The author graduated from the University of Hong Kong and underwent psychiatric training in the Hospital Authority.