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This is for the interviews held at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). At the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), they have specified on their website that the interviews will be held in English.
However, for HKU, interviewers have the choice of switching the interviews to Chinese and testing your proficiency. This is extremely important: you are required to talk to patients mainly in Cantonese and Mandarin in your clinical years, so it would be a little problematic if you don’t know any Chinese!
This should be obvious for all Medicine applicants, but it is worth noting that CUHK places quite a strong focus on your personal statement, as interviewers will ask you about your extracurricular activities and what you have learnt from them.
CUHK may also request a two-page CV from interviewees, so make sure that you have something to say about the work experience/extracurricular activities that you have listed. You can check our Interview Question Bank for answer guides to these questions.
Similar to other medical interviews, for Hong Kong Medicine interviews you should understand the four pillars of Ethics (autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice) and know how to apply them to different situations. An additional piece of advice would be to link the ethics back to the Hong Kong context.
For example, if you were given an ethical case on organ donation, the interviewer may have follow-up questions on which sources you can turn to for help if you need an organ to be donated to loved ones.
You could then suggest that one of Hong Kong’s popular newspapers, such as Apple Daily or SCMP, could reach out to readers to see who may be willing to help – as evident from the case of the student Ma Cheuk-long.
For other non-governmental sectors, you could also turn to foundations like the Hong Kong Organ Donation Foundation and the Hong Kong Red Cross for support.
Just like you would read up on the NHS, it’s a good idea to read up on Hong Kong medical news. You don’t need to be able to name every chief executive in Hong Kong history, but it’s a good idea to know the basics of the Hong Kong medical system.
It would also be useful to know some key differences between the medical system between where you are currently studying (if you are studying abroad) and Hong Kong, and also some important policies or schemes that the Department of Health has proposed or enforced.
Many people will have the misconception that Hong Kong Medicine interviews will be similar to those offered by Oxbridge. Certainly, they give out offers as competitive as those by Oxbridge (Taking IB for instance, HKU requires IB 44-45, whilst CUHK requires IB 43-45), however, they will not test you on your sciences, probably because they assume that those who have applied should be very good at it already.
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