Before the handover of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China in 1997, medical education in this former British colony traditionally and exclusively followed the path of western medicine.
[citation needed] Chinese medicine practitioners had no formal status at that time.
However, after the return of the territory to China, the practice of traditional Chinese medicine was further regulated[when?]
and schools of Chinese Medicine were set up within some of the government-funded tertiary institutions in Hong Kong.
There are two schools that teach Western Medicine in Hong Kong, namely, the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong (HKU Med) and the Faculty of Medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.