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. Faculties of Medicine were modelled after those in the United Kingdom, and only doctors trained in western medicine were considered "formal" and "reliable." 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 and schools of Chinese Medicine were set up within some of the government funded tertiary institutions in Hong Kong. The first school of its kind, the School of Chinese Medicine at Hong Kong Baptist University, was established in 1998. Currently, there are two fac