New hospital hungry for medical talent
University of Hong Kong's private venture will offer cutting-edge technology and design, but needs the manpower to make it all work
Vacancies for more than 150 doctors and 800 nurses will open up in Aberdeen when a private hospital run by the University of Hong Kong is completed in 2017.
In addition, the university's Li Ka-Shing Faculty of Medicine is seeking recruits to join two other key projects - an HKU-Shenzhen hospital that has begun operations across the border, and the expansion of the public Queen Mary Hospital in Pok Fu Lam.
Manpower will be of the utmost concern in the projects, said the new dean of medicine, Professor Gabriel Leung.
"Human capital and talent is one of the areas we have to look at, along with the hardware investment," Leung said at his first meeting with the media after succeeding Professor Lee Sum-ping on August 1.
Leung has a new deputy, associate dean of human capital Professor David Wong Sai-hung, whose position was created in this new five-year term to tackle a brain drain faced by the HKU medical faculty.
Wong cited anaesthesiology and the accident and emergency units as among specialist fields that were suffering more severe staff shortages.
The recruitment drive - for teaching professors, medical researchers and frontline doctors, among other professionals - had begun both locally and overseas, he said.
