The Coming and Going of the School of Nursing — HKU Nursing Education's Closure, Re-establishment and Path to Professionalism

This article belongs to Module 11 Medicine/Hospitals, focusing on the institutional history of the School of Nursing — its founding as a department in 1995, its elevation to a school in 2010, and its role in Hong Kong's policy shift of nursing education from "hospital-based" to "university-based". For the overall origins of the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, see li-ka-shing-faculty-of-medicine-1.md (Part 1, origins from the 1887 college) and li-ka-shing-faculty-of-medicine-2.md (Part 2, the five-school structure); for the School of Public Health and the School of Chinese Medicine, see school-of-public-health-and-chinese-medicine.md. Data current as of June 2026.

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One-sentence conclusion: The School of Nursing at the University of Hong Kong was founded in 1995 as the "Department of Nursing Studies"^※, enrolling 42 students in its first cohort; it was elevated to the "School of Nursing" in 2010^※, and is now one of five schools under HKUMed, topped Hong Kong nursing schools in research achievement in both the UGC Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2014 and 2020^※.

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# 1. Overview

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# 2. The Big Picture of Hong Kong Nursing Education: Why Did "University-Based" Training Only Begin in the 1990s?

# 2.1 The Long Era of the Hospital Apprenticeship System (1937–1989)

Before the birth of HKU's School of Nursing, nurse training in Hong Kong followed the "British apprenticeship" model: in 1937, Queen Mary Hospital opened its hospital-based nursing school, the earliest formal training institution for registered nurses^※. After three years of "on-the-job training", students sat the registration examination of the Nursing Board of Hong Kong^※ to qualify as registered nurses. This system ran for decades, but clinical research training was thin, and nursing found it hard to take root independently within the university system. Towards the end of the 1980s, with advances in medical technology and the Hospital Authority on the horizon, pressure for nursing professionalisation began to concentrate.

# 2.2 The 1989 Policy Turning Point: The Nursing Board Proposes University Degree Programmes

In 1989, the Nursing Board of Hong Kong proposed that universities offer a small number of nursing degree programmes^※, marking the starting point of the institutional transformation to come. The proposal was put into practice in the early 1990s: in 1990, the Hong Kong Polytechnic (predecessor of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University) became the first to admit an inaugural cohort of 40 nursing students, setting the precedent for pre-registration nursing degree programmes at Hong Kong tertiary institutions^※. Traditional hospital nursing schools soon began to shrink their intakes.

In 1993, the Hospital Authority took over full management of public hospitals^※, adding further momentum to professionalisation. By the 2000s, nurse training across Hong Kong had shifted entirely to universities and tertiary institutions, with hospital-based schools largely withdrawing from pre-registration training^※; by then, it was estimated that over half of nurses held university nursing degrees.

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# 3. The Birth of HKU's Department of Nursing Studies (1995)

# 3.1 Why Was HKU "Five Years Late" in Offering a Nursing Degree?

The Hong Kong Polytechnic had launched its nursing degree in 1990 and the Chinese University of Hong Kong's medical faculty in 1991. HKU followed only in 1995, when it established its "Department of Nursing Studies"^※, third in the sequence. The inaugural four-year Bachelor of Nursing Honours Programme admitted 42 students^※, and the department was based within the Queen Mary Hospital campus^※, drawing on the clinical resources of HKU's main teaching hospital to build a practical training foundation. Those 42 students became the starting point of HKU's nursing education lineage.

# 3.2 Leadership in the Founding Years

The department's first Head was Prof. S. P. Chow, appointed in 1995^※. Dr Sophia Chan (later Secretary for Food and Health) briefly led the department from January to August 1996, followed by Prof. Patricia L. Sullivan from September^※; in 2000, Sophia Chan returned to take up the headship^※. This back-and-forth between academia and government would become an early footnote in the department's entanglement with Hong Kong health policy.

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# 4. From "Department" to "School": The Path of Institutional Elevation (2000–2010)

# 4.1 The Gradual Expansion of the Programme Portfolio

Through the 2000s, the Department of Nursing Studies steadily broadened its programmes. In 1999, the Master of Nursing in Advanced Practice was launched^※; in 2001, the first MPhil and PhD students enrolled, formally marking the start of postgraduate research education in nursing^※; and in 2002, the first Master of Nursing (MNurs) cohort graduated^※. During this period, the department also moved from Queen Mary Hospital to the Sassoon Road campus in 2001^※, a sign of its closer physical integration with the main body of the medical faculty.

In 2004, the Centre for Health Promotion was established under the department^※; in 2005, the Youth Quitline went live^※, and the department's "knowledge exchange" function began to stand out beyond teaching and research alone.

# 4.2 Doctor of Nursing and Undergraduate Curriculum Reform (2009–2012)

In 2009, the Doctor of Nursing (DNurs) programme and the Part-time Pre-registration Bachelor Programme were launched simultaneously^※, further extending the full training ladder from bachelor's to professional doctorate.

In 2010, the Department of Nursing Studies was formally elevated to the "School of Nursing"^※ — an important milestone at the academic-institutional level, meaning nursing now held equal standing with the other schools within HKU's medical faculty, no longer existing as a department-level appendage.

In 2011, Prof. Agnes Tiwari took over the leadership of the School^※. Around the same time, Hong Kong's tertiary sector was implementing the "3-3-4" education reform; in 2012, the School responded by introducing a five-year full-time pre-registration Bachelor of Nursing programme^※, tailored to the longer curriculum cycle produced by the new senior secondary structure.

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# 5. Into the Five-School Structure of the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine (2015–Present)

# 5.1 The School of Nursing as One of Five Schools

Today the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine (HKUMed) comprises five schools plus a number of departments^※, of which the School of Nursing is one:

Within the five-school structure, the School of Nursing and the School of Chinese Medicine (1998) were the earliest to be established, predating the School of Biomedical Sciences (2015) and the School of Clinical Medicine (2022).

# 5.2 Current Leadership and Research Focus

In 2017, Prof. Chia-Chin Lin joined from Taipei Medical University, also taking up the Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Charity Foundation Professorship in Nursing^※. She has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and a recipient of the Sigma Theta Tau International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame award^※, and specialises in cancer pain management and end-of-life care.

In 2022, the School moved with HKUMed into the new academic building at 3 Sassoon Road, and its high-fidelity simulation training centre received professional accreditation the same year^※, now hailed as one of the most advanced nursing simulation training facilities in Southeast Asia^※. The facility, named the "Li Shu Fan Medical Foundation Nursing Clinical Skills Laboratory", became in 2022 the first nursing simulation laboratory at a Hong Kong tertiary institution to be certified by the Association for Simulated Practice in Healthcare (ASPiH)^※; as early as 2021, the School had already been the first university in Hong Kong to adopt high-fidelity infant and child simulators in teaching^※, keeping its teaching methods ahead of its peers.

# 5.3 Research Rankings and Institutional Recognition

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# 6. Networking Teaching and Research: Forums, Alliances and Accreditation (2005–2022)

One-sentence conclusion: From 2005 onwards, the School shifted from "running programmes" to "weaving networks" — building up its alumni association, signing memoranda with overseas institutions, and upgrading a local forum into an international one, before concentrating its efforts from 2017 on securing a series of regional alliances and international accreditations. This strand runs in parallel with the programme expansion described above, yet is often overlooked.

# 6.1 From a Hong Kong Forum to an International Forum (2005–2019)

In 2005, the HKU School of Nursing Alumni Association was established^※, and the same year the School held a symposium marking its tenth anniversary; in 2006, it signed a memorandum of cooperation with the University of Pennsylvania^※, one of the School's earliest overseas institutional agreements. The "Hong Kong Nursing Forum" was first held in 2007^※, and in 2010 was renamed the "Hong Kong International Nursing Forum"^※, reflecting the forum's expansion from a local to a cross-border remit. In 2018, the School co-organised the 8th Hong Kong International Nursing Forum with Johns Hopkins University^※; in 2019, the forum was held outside Hong Kong for the first time, co-hosted with HKU-Shenzhen Hospital^※. In 2024, the forum merged with the "2024 Sino-US Nursing Forum" and the "Second Greater Bay Area Nursing Conference" into a single event, again with HKU-Shenzhen Hospital, attracting more than 400 delegates^※; the same year marked the School's 30th anniversary and also saw the 27th East Asian Forum of Nursing Scholars held in Hong Kong, drawing over 1,400 delegates from home and abroad^※ — in three decades, the School's forum has progressed from "Hong Kong" to "international" and then to "Greater Bay Area", a clear trajectory.

# 6.2 Regional Alliances and Professional Accreditations Land in Short Order (2017–2022)

2017 was a pivotal year in the School's external engagement: it became the only nursing institution in Hong Kong to sign the memorandum of cooperation for the Southeast and East Asian Nursing Education and Research Network (SEANERN)^※, and the same year established the Centre for Evidence-Based Nursing and Research Translation Alliance (CERTAIN)^※. Accreditation and network-building then continued to intensify: in 2022, the School took the lead in founding the first Asia-Pacific Qualitative Health Research Network (AQUHN)^※; that same year, the Nursing Clinical Skills Laboratory gained ASPiH accreditation (see 5.2). On the teaching side, in 2021 the School launched the accredited Master of Science in Nursing (MSc in Nursing) programme and the undergraduate "Advanced Leadership Track" (BNurs-ALT)^※, and in 2024 the first MSc in Nursing cohort graduated^※. The common thrust of these moves is a repositioning of the School from "a local department training registered nurses" to a research and accreditation platform with a regional-hub role.

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# 7. Two Battles Against Epidemics: The School of Nursing in SARS and COVID-19

One-sentence conclusion: Twice in its history, the School has faced Hong Kong public health crises head-on — the department took part in the response during the 2003 SARS outbreak^※, and in the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic the School again threw itself into community epidemic response^※; the two experiences fell respectively under the leadership of Sophia Chan and Chia-Chin Lin.

During SARS in 2003, the department was in its early expansion phase (around the time Prof. Sophia Chan was serving her second term as Head), and took part in the epidemic response^※; the outbreak also became one of the key turning points in the discourse on professionalising Hong Kong's healthcare system, echoing the existing trajectory of nursing education's shift from "hospital-based" to "university-based" (see Sections 2 and 6).

Seventeen years later, in 2020, the School formally responded to the COVID-19 pandemic^※, producing public health information to help the public distinguish fact from misinformation. Around the same time, within the framework of the "Jockey Club Nice-Link" project, the School's team designed a nurse-led remote care scheme for older adults affected by social isolation, offering fortnightly telephone care and real-time health consultations^※. That year also marked the tenth anniversary of the School's "Infection Control Certificate Course"^※ — a course run with the Department of Microbiology since 2009, which happened to reach its decennial precisely in the year the pandemic broke out, a coincidental footnote to the School's accumulated public health education.

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# 8. Research Influencing Policy: Smoking Cessation, Tobacco Control and the 2022 Legislation

One-sentence conclusion: The School's smoking cessation and tobacco control research team used evidence to push the Hong Kong government towards a comprehensive ban on the import, promotion, manufacture and sale of alternative smoking products (e-cigarettes and heated tobacco) from 30 April 2022^※, a flagship case of the School's research feeding directly into legislation.

Led by Dr Kelvin Wang Man-ping^※, the smoking cessation research team produced evidence that alternative smoking products do not help people quit and may in fact hinder cessation: the synthetic chemicals in e-cigarettes can penetrate deep into the lungs and cause inflammation, adolescents and children who use them face a risk of respiratory symptoms similar to that of conventional smokers, and dual users (of both conventional cigarettes and e-cigarettes) are at the greatest risk^※. This body of evidence formed one of the substantive bases on which the Hong Kong government and legislature comprehensively banned alternative smoking products^※. The team subsequently received the American Academy of Nursing's "Edge Runner" award in 2022 for its community smoking cessation outcomes^※, one of the rare cases of Hong Kong nursing research gaining such international professional recognition. According to the School's figures, Hong Kong's overall smoking rate is around 9.8%, involving roughly 600,000 people^※, giving tobacco control research direct population-health significance. This research-to-legislation chain also continues a thread that began with the founding of the department in 1995 — the "Youth Quitline", hailed in 2005 as "the first youth-oriented smoking cessation hotline"^※. Tobacco control has always been a long-running strand of the School's knowledge exchange work, not an isolated achievement.

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# 9. The School and Hong Kong's Nursing Manpower Policy

# 9.1 The Manpower Policy Logic Behind the Department's Founding

The establishment of HKU's Department of Nursing Studies in 1995 was embedded within the structural policy shift of Hong Kong nursing education from "hospital-based" to "university-based" across the 1990s^※. As the Hospital Authority took over public hospitals (1993) and hospital nursing schools progressively closed, university nursing degree places across Hong Kong stood at around 180 per year (before the expansion of 1995); the system, even as it professionalised, bore the long-term strain of an insufficient total supply.

# 9.2 The Policy Influence of Successive Leaders

Every leader of the School has left a visible footprint in Hong Kong health policy. Prof. Sophia Chan Siu-chee rose from the HKU School of Nursing to serve successively as Under Secretary for Food and Health (2012) and Secretary for Food and Health (2017–2022)^※, championing community healthcare reforms during her tenure; Prof. Agnes Tiwari, after stepping down as Director, became Chair of the Nursing Council of Hong Kong^※, directly overseeing the regulation of nurse registration and professional development across Hong Kong. This two-way flow between the School and policy is quite distinctive in Hong Kong's higher education history.

# 9.3 The Present: The Tension Between Nurse Shortage and School Expansion

Hong Kong faces a severe nursing manpower shortfall in recent years. According to relevant projections, the supply-demand gap for general nurses in the public healthcare system could reach around 9,500 by about 2025^※, with population ageing (those aged 65 and above accounting for roughly 22% in 2024, up markedly from about 15% a decade earlier^※) a key driver. At the same time, in July 2024 Hong Kong's legislature passed a new law allowing eligible overseas-trained nurses to work in public hospitals, clinics and care homes without sitting the local registration examination, applying instead for special registration with three years of work experience^※.

In response to this gap, the HKU School of Nursing has launched a self-financed full-time "Bachelor of Science in Nursing"^※ aimed at students from mainland China and international students, taught bilingually, linked with HKU-Shenzhen Hospital, and with graduates eligible to sit mainland China's nurse registration examination — a sign that, besides replenishing local manpower, the School is exploring a new positioning in cross-border nursing education.

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# 10. Comparing Hong Kong's Three Nursing Education Institutions

One-sentence conclusion: HKU's School of Nursing is neither the only nor the earliest player in Hong Kong's university nursing education — PolyU led (1990), CUHK followed (1991), HKU brought up the rear (1995) — but the three have since diverged: CUHK stands on the "Nethersole" brand and a century-deep hospital lineage, PolyU on applied nursing research, and HKU on clinical research integration within the five-school HKUMed structure.

The three schools were founded within five years of one another, yet their story reflects the "multiple simultaneous starting points" of Hong Kong nursing higher education — unlike medicine or law, which long remained HKU's exclusive preserve, nursing was a three-way contest from the very beginning of its university phase. One detail worth noting: the QS ranking data cited on HKU's own website still dates from 2021, already out of step with the 2026 figures cited by PolyU — a small clue to how unevenly the institutions refresh their published rankings.

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# 11. Key Programmes and Institutional Timeline

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# 12. Cross-References

• Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, origins from the 1887 college and the five-school structure: ./li-ka-shing-faculty-of-medicine-1.md (Part 1) · ./li-ka-shing-faculty-of-medicine-2.md (Part 2)
• School of Public Health and School of Chinese Medicine: ./school-of-public-health-and-chinese-medicine.md
• Queen Mary Hospital and other teaching hospitals: ./teaching-hospitals.md
• Research strengths of the Faculty's clinical departments: ./departments-and-strengths.md

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