The Birth of Hong Kong's Second Medical School: The Founding of the CUHK Faculty of Medicine and Its Founding Dean, Gerald Choa (1977–1981)

This article is a fact-based archival entry in the reference section (11 Medicine). It carries no credibility badges, and itemises official/secondary sources throughout. It focuses specifically on the founding history of the CUHK Faculty of Medicine and its founding dean, complementing 11-medical-hospital/faculty-of-medicine.md (an overview of the Faculty's structure) and prince-of-wales-and-sars.md (the clinical history of the teaching hospital). The founding dean is deceased; his name is recorded as a matter of public record.

---

# 一、Hong Kong's "Second Medical School"

Before the Faculty of Medicine at CUHK was established, the University of Hong Kong was the only institution in the territory offering medical education. Counting from 1887, when HKU's predecessor, the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, was founded, higher medical education in Hong Kong followed a "one city, one school" pattern for nearly a century. The establishment of the CUHK Faculty of Medicine broke that monopoly — it became Hong Kong's second medical school. According to the English Wikipedia article "CUHK Faculty of Medicine"^※ and the CUHK Faculty of Medicine milestones page^※, the Legislative Council approved the establishment of a medical faculty at CUHK in 1974, and the Faculty completed its basic construction and admitted its first undergraduate cohort in 1981.

What "the second" meant: for a densely populated city, a single medical school meant a bottleneck in training healthcare professionals. Hong Kong's population grew rapidly in the 1960s and 70s, and the public healthcare system's demand for doctors and nurses rose accordingly — a need that one medical school at HKU alone could not satisfy. The founding of the CUHK Faculty of Medicine did more than add another centre of medical education and research: it created a second pipeline of talent for the local healthcare system. From that point on, Hong Kong's medical education entered an era of "two medical schools standing side by side" — a structure that persists today, with CUHK and HKU still the only two universities in Hong Kong with medical faculties.

---

# 二、After the Legislative Council Approval: The Gap Years, 1974 to 1977

A medical school does not materialise the moment approval is granted. According to the Faculty of Medicine's official "Milestones" page^※, once the government and the Legislative Council approved the establishment of the Faculty in 1974, the University faced an immediate, practical question: who would turn that approval into a medical school that could actually function? Launching a medical faculty involves a staggering range of tasks — site selection, building construction, curriculum design, securing a teaching hospital, recruiting qualified academic staff, and obtaining accreditation from professional medical bodies. The University laid the initial groundwork on these fronts between 1974 and 1977, but the real, comprehensive coordination had to wait for the arrival of a first full-time dean.

This interregnum — approval granted, dean not yet appointed — partly explains why CUHK ultimately chose a senior physician with experience spanning clinical practice, administration, and education to lead the effort. Building a new medical school demands more than academic prestige; it requires the administrative skill to navigate government bureaucracy, coordinate hospitals, and steer the accreditation process.

---

# 三、The Founding Dean, Gerald Choa: A Medical Education Forged in Wartime

The smooth establishment of the CUHK Faculty of Medicine rested on one key architect — the founding dean, Gerald Hugh Choa (1921–2001).

# 1. Family Background and Wartime Displacement: From Wah Yan College to Cheeloo University

According to the Chinese Wikipedia entry on Gerald Choa^※, Choa was born in Hong Kong on 21 March 1921. His ancestral home was in Fujian, and his grandfather came from a comprador family. He graduated from Wah Yan College, Hong Kong in 1938 and went on to study medicine at the University of Hong Kong. He began his medical studies at HKU, but his education was interrupted by the outbreak of the Pacific War — after Hong Kong fell in late 1941, normal teaching at the HKU medical faculty became impossible. Amid the chaos of war, he made his way to "Free China" to continue his studies, completing his degree at Cheeloo University Medical School (in Jinan, Shandong; relocated inland during the war), and received his MD from Cheeloo in 1945. After the war, when HKU resumed operations, he sat for and obtained the University of Hong Kong's MBBS in 1946.

A wartime education interrupted, and stitched back together: Choa's medical training spanned two medical schools in wartime Hong Kong and mainland China — HKU and Cheeloo. This trajectory of "occupation—relocation inland—resumption of study" was hardly unusual among that generation of Hong Kong intellectuals and professionals, yet it also shaped his pragmatic style — a gift for "getting things done under unfavourable conditions" that would resurface when he came to build the CUHK medical school.

# 2. Liverpool and Teaching at HKU: Two Decades in the Government's Medical System

According to the Chinese Wikipedia entry on Gerald Choa^※ and the Royal College of Physicians' "Inspiring Physicians" entry on Choa^※, after completing his HKU medical qualification in 1946, Choa went to Britain in 1947 for further study, earning a diploma in tropical medicine from the University of Liverpool and becoming a Member of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP). This British training laid the foundation for the triple role — clinician, teacher, and administrator — he would later play. On returning to Hong Kong, he held a succession of posts at HKU and in the government medical system:

• 1949 (some sources say 1952) to 1956: Lecturer in Medicine at the University of Hong Kong, teaching internal medicine;
• 1956: became the first Chinese specialist in medicine at Queen Mary Hospital, heading a large medical department. According to RCP records, he was particularly skilled in cardiology and neurology, and was "an outstanding clinician and an excellent teacher";
• 1956 to 1967: concurrently served as Part-time Lecturer and Examiner in Medicine at HKU;
• 1967: left Queen Mary Hospital upon appointment as Deputy Director of the Medical and Health Services Department (Medical Division);
• 1970: promoted to Director of Medical and Health Services, overseeing public healthcare and health policy territory-wide, and appointed an official member of the Legislative Council, a post he held until moving to CUHK in 1976.

By the time he joined CUHK, then, Choa had accumulated nearly two decades of clinical, teaching, and administrative experience in Hong Kong's public healthcare system — six of those years at the very apex of territory-wide health policy. That record carried far more weight than a purely academic CV: when he moved to CUHK in 1976, he brought not just medical knowledge but a full set of practical lessons about "how to build a medical school within Hong Kong's institutional system".

From the top of government to a blank slate: the decision to trade the post of Director of Medical and Health Services for the role of builder of a medical school that did not yet exist invites reflection. Rather than staying in an established government position, Choa chose work that was more pioneering, and far more uncertain — founding a medical school from nothing. His judgement in this regard presaged the trajectory the CUHK Faculty would later take: rather than simply copying the HKU model, he leveraged his connections and experience within the government system to secure a smoother path to reality for the new faculty (including the choice of teaching hospital and coordination with the medical authorities).

---

# 四、Founding Dean Gerald Choa: From Planning to Completion

According to CUHK's official "Our Founding Dean" page^※ and a CUHK press release on the memorial lecture^※:

• According to these sources, Choa joined CUHK in 1976;
• He was appointed the Faculty's first full-time dean in 1977;
• He served as the University's Pro-Vice-Chancellor from 1979 to 1981, with a term running from 1 March 1979 to 28 February 1981;
• He was the founder and founding dean of the Faculty, and held the title of Chair Professor of Administrative Medicine.

According to CUHK's official page^※, Choa played a pivotal role in every facet of the Faculty's establishment — including the teaching hospital, the curriculum, and the recruitment of senior teaching, service, and research staff. He also facilitated the establishment of a teaching hospital, which became Prince of Wales Hospital (for the clinical history, see prince-of-wales-and-sars.md).

According to the Faculty of Medicine's official "Milestones" page^※, under Choa's leadership the Faculty's establishment unfolded roughly as follows:

Building from nothing: founding a medical school involves far more than "offering a few courses" — it requires erecting three pillars simultaneously — a teaching hospital, a curriculum, and a senior faculty — and securing recognition from international professional accreditation bodies. Choa's work from 1977 onward was precisely about turning those three pillars from blueprint into reality: the 1981 intake and launch of teaching was only the first step; putting the teaching hospital system in place through 1983–84 was the real battle; and recognition by the British General Medical Council in 1987 meant the Faculty's degrees now carried the endorsement of an international professional standard. One could say the "integration of teaching, research, and clinical care" that characterises the CUHK Faculty today was set in place by this dean at the very founding.

---

# 五、The Founding Dean's Academic Credentials

According to CUHK's official page^※, Choa's own academic standing was formidable:

• He held the MBBS and MD degrees from the University of Hong Kong (the MD was in fact conferred by Cheeloo University during the war, while the MBBS was awarded by HKU after the war — see above);
• He was a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London (FRCP), a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (FRCP Edin), and a Fellow of the Faculty of Community Medicine (FFCM).

A senior physician schooled at HKU, who completed his training at Cheeloo, held multiple fellowships of the British royal colleges, and had served as Director of Medical and Health Services, came to lay the foundations for "Hong Kong's second medical school" — the choice was itself symbolic: it carried Hong Kong's existing medical tradition (the HKU lineage) and the hard-won experience of the public health system into the building of the new CUHK Faculty. The two medical schools were therefore never wholly separate; they were connected in personnel and tradition. The CUHK Faculty's status as "the second" was, in a sense, personally established by a physician who had come out of "the first."

---

# 六、Beyond CUHK: A Multiple Founder of Hong Kong's Medical Institutions

Choa's institution-building contributions extended well beyond the CUHK medical faculty. According to the Royal College of Physicians' "Inspiring Physicians" entry on Choa^※, he was a founding member of several of Hong Kong's medical institutions:

• A founding member of the Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences;
• A founding vice-president of the Hong Kong College of Physicians;
• A founding fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine — the territory's apex body that coordinates the specialist colleges and confers specialist qualifications.

According to the University of Hong Kong's "Honorary University Fellows" page^※, HKU conferred on him an Honorary University Fellowship in 1995 in recognition of his contributions to medical education and public health. According to the Chinese Wikipedia entry on Gerald Choa^※, he was also awarded a CBE and held the office of Justice of the Peace.

From one medical school to a whole medical establishment: if founding the CUHK Faculty was Choa's best-known achievement, his simultaneous or subsequent founding roles in the Hong Kong College of Physicians and the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine show that his influence reached into the very architecture of Hong Kong's professional medical qualifications. The founding of the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine in the 1990s marked the moment when specialist training and accreditation in Hong Kong gained a unified local body — and Choa was among its founding participants. A man who had once held the highest post in the territory's public healthcare, and personally founded a medical school, spent his later years still helping to shape the institutional skeleton of Hong Kong's medical profession. That consistency is, in itself, a gloss on his public career.

---

# 七、Later Years, Another Identity: Historian of Medicine

After stepping down as dean, Choa did not stop at administrative and clinical work. He turned instead to research and writing in the history of medicine, leaving two works of scholarly value.

According to the Wellcome Collection catalogue record^※, in 1990 he published, with The Chinese University Press, "Heal the Sick" was Their Motto: The Protestant Medical Missionaries in China — a systematic study of Protestant medical missionaries in modern China. Written in English and devoted to the history of medical missions in modern China, the book drew attention and reviews from the international sinology and medical history communities upon publication.

An earlier work connects directly to the very origins of Hong Kong medical education. According to the Chinese University Press catalogue page^※, in 1981 — the very year the CUHK Faculty's first cohort enrolled — Choa published, again with The Chinese University Press, The Life and Times of Sir Kai Ho Kai, a systematic account of the life of Sir Kai Ho Kai (1859–1914); a revised second edition appeared in 2000. Ho Kai was one of the most influential Chinese leaders in Hong Kong since the founding of the colony, holding dual qualifications as a physician and a barrister. According to related historical material^※, he was the key figure behind the establishment of the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese in 1887, which was absorbed into the University of Hong Kong in 1912 and became the direct ancestor of the HKU medical faculty — the very lineage described at the start of this article as Hong Kong's "only medical school" before CUHK's arrived.

An echo across nearly a century: Choa wrote the biography of Ho Kai in the same year the CUHK medical school opened its doors to students. This is not a rhetorical coincidence the article wishes to underscore, but a verifiable fact of publication: a founding dean who had just assembled the skeleton of Hong Kong's "second medical school" published, that same year, a scholarly biography of the founder of the "first." The histories of the two medical schools intersect, at the level of text, through this one book. It confirms what Section 1 argued — that the two faculties are not two entirely separate histories, but one continuous history of Hong Kong medical education, interwoven in personnel, tradition, and research interests.

From "the man who built a medical school" to "the man who wrote its history": the turn is unsurprising. Choa had always straddled clinical medicine, medical administration, and education. His late shift to the history of medicine was, in a sense, the conversion of a lifetime's practical experience in the healthcare system into scholarly reflection on the larger question of "how medicine modernised in China." A man who had once built a medical school spent his later years writing about the missionary doctors who first brought modern medicine to China, and about the founder of Hong Kong's western medical education — a thread that loops back on itself with real historical resonance.

---

# 八、Teaching, Research, and Clinical Care as One: The Long Shadow of the Founding Structure

The "integration of teaching, research, and clinical care" that Choa established has profoundly shaped the Faculty's subsequent development:

• Teaching hospital: Prince of Wales Hospital, as the main teaching hospital, has allowed medical students to train in real clinical settings (for the clinical history, see prince-of-wales-and-sars.md);
• Research flagship: the Faculty later produced world-class research such as NIPT (non-invasive prenatal testing; see 04-research/nipt-deepdive.md) and established state key laboratories in areas including digestive diseases and translational oncology (see 04-research/state-key-laboratories.md);
• Disciplinary expansion: the Faculty subsequently grew into a large umbrella organisation covering medicine, nursing, pharmacy, Chinese medicine, biomedical sciences, public health, and more (for structure, see faculty-of-medicine.md); the School of Chinese Medicine was integrated in 2013 from the Faculty of Science (see school-of-chinese-medicine.md);
• Extending the clinical footprint: the founding-era experience with teaching hospitals carried into later clinical expansion — beyond Prince of Wales Hospital, the Faculty set up the cross-disciplinary Jockey Club Institute of Ageing in 2014 (see jockey-club-institute-of-ageing.md) and opened Hong Kong's first non-profit private teaching hospital, CUHK Medical Centre, in 2021 (see cuhk-medical-centre-private-teaching-hospital.md).

Choa stepped down as dean in 1986. According to the Chinese Wikipedia entry on Gerald Choa^※, he died in Hong Kong on 3 December 2001, aged 80. In memory of the founding dean, CUHK maintains the Gerald Choa Memorial Lecture (per the official CUHK press release^※) and has established the Gerald Choa Neuroscience Institute named in his honour — twin memorials, a lecture and an institute, that together carry forward the founding dean's legacy in clinical care, education, and research.

A medical school's character is often fixed at its founding. That the CUHK Faculty would later excel in clinical care (Prince of Wales Hospital, CUHK Medical Centre) and research (NIPT, state key laboratories) follows directly from Choa's "teaching–research–clinical integration" design. From a young doctor who studied amid the upheavals of war, to Director of Medical and Health Services, to founding dean of a medical school, multiple founder of Hong Kong's medical institutions, and finally a historian of medicine in his later years — Choa's personal trajectory condenses, in a sense, the entire arc of twentieth-century Hong Kong medicine, from a "colonial public health system" to a "medical education centre of international repute." The founding dean's foresight became the enduring tone of a medical school across decades of development.

Related reading: 医学院架构与临床学系 (Faculty structure and clinical departments), 威尔斯亲王医院与 SARS (Prince of Wales Hospital and SARS), 中医学院 (School of Chinese Medicine), 赛马会老年学研究所 (Jockey Club Institute of Ageing), 中大医院开业考 (The opening of CUHK Medical Centre), 无创产前诊断深考 (Non-invasive prenatal testing in depth), 国家重点实验室 (State key laboratories), 医学院深度档案 (In-depth archive: the Faculty of Medicine).

---