Hong Kong calling on international dentists

Dental Tribune International

Tue. 24. December 2024

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HONG KONG, China: Owing to an acute lack of dentists amid an ongoing labour shortage, Hong Kong is seeking to attract non-locally trained dentists to live and work in the city. Taking effect on 1 January 2025, changes to the administrative region’s Dentists Registration Ordinance have created new pathways to employment for foreign-trained clinicians.

Foreign-trained dentists are eligible to apply for limited registration and licensure from the Dental Council of Hong Kong (DCHK) to practise dentistry in the city’s public health institutions. These include the Department of Health, the University of Hong Kong and the Prince Philip Dental Hospital.

An article in Hong Kong Free Press explained that dentists who have trained overseas and who have completed a minimum period of five years of satisfactory service in a designated institution may qualify to apply for full registration. Fully registered foreign-trained dentists are free to practise anywhere in the city. Those holding limited registration are required to pass the clinical component of the council’s licensing examination. For practitioners with special registration, the licensing body will assess each case individually to determine whether the licensing examination is necessary. A temporary registration system will be introduced from 1 January, allowing overseas dental professionals to engage in clinical teaching or research in Hong Kong for a period not exceeding two weeks. According to the government, this licence will not serve as a pathway to full registration.

Announcing the amendments on 21 November, the government said in a statement: “[The Department of Health] has already launched recruitment exercises while working closely with the DCHK in a bid to enable the first batch of non-locally trained dentists to come to Hong Kong in the first quarter of next year to serve the public.”

According to government documents, Hong Kong had 2,876 registered dentists in December 2023—just 0.37 practitioners per 1,000 inhabitants. Prof. Lo Chung-mau, secretary for health of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, told the territory’s Legislative Council in April: “[The] shortfall of dentist manpower was projected to be 115 and 102 in 2030 and 2035, respectively.”