A third medical school in Hong Kong will contribute to the establishment of a healthcare platform for the entire Greater Bay Area, Hong Kong Baptist University president Alexander Wai said.

HKBU is among three universities that have submitted proposals to establish the city’s third medical school.

Speaking on a Commercial Radio programme on Sunday, Wai said Hong Kong can engage in medical collaboration with mainland cities in the Greater Bay Area.

“It’s obvious in Hong Kong that top students in the DSE exams in Hong Kong will study medicine but it’s not the case in the mainland, where outstanding students tend to study science and finance. Through this collaboration, we can help improve medical education in the Greater Bay Area,” he said.

Wai also said HKBU is able to train medical professionals with Chinese medicine knowledge.

“Due to the ageing population, cooperation between western and Chinese medicine will definitely be the trend in the future. We hope that doctors trained by the new medical school will have basic knowledge in Chinese medicine,” he said.

“We are not changing them to Chinese medicine practitioners, but they should be prepared to collaborate with Chinese medicine.”

Wai also said the university had recruited experts to design a medical programme that caters to Hong Kong’s needs.

The president said HKBU had received 13,500 applications from non-local students for undergraduate study so far this year, a 13 percent increase from last year.