The University of Hong Kong has informed a long-term medicine professor that his contract will not be renewed when it expires in June after working at the university for over half a century, Apple Daily has learned.

The university’s selection and promotion committee rejected the contract renewal application from Chair Professor of Medicine and Hepatology Lai Ching-lung, meaning he can no longer work at HKU as a part-time professor after June.

The decision was made despite the HKU faculty of medicine’s recommendation to promote the 72-year-old as an emeritus professor, two sources told Apple Daily, adding that the selection committee had no intention of keeping Lai at the university.

With more than 57,000 citations and an h-index of 113, Lai is one of the most productive and impactful scientists in Hong Kong. H-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications of a specific scientist or scholar.

Lai was a fervent supporter of the anti-government protest movement that swept through the former British colony beginning in 2019, and has recently been regarded as a vocal physician who advocated for the city’s health authorities to shut down the borders during the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak last year.

Lai’s outspoken attitude was believed to be spurned by HKU management, the sources said. He has not replied to Apple Daily’s inquiries about the dismissal, while HKU’s faculty of medicine has refused to comment on the issue.

Lai, however, is not the first academic to be sacked by HKU under vice chancellor Zhang Xiang’s administration. The university last October forced out a government COVID-19 adviser, infectious disease specialist Keiji Fukuda, who is due to leave HKU later this year.

Hong Kong’s medical sector has recently seen a brain drain from the city. Former associate dean of the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s faculty of medicine Joseph Sung will move to Nanyang Technological University in Singapore as the university’s senior vice president and its medicine faculty’s dean. The former heads of HKU’s department of microbiology Patrick Woo and Susanna Lau also resigned last year.

HKU should openly explain the reasons behind Lai’s unexpected dismissal, said Hong Kong Public Doctors’ Association president Arisina Ma.

If Lai has to leave HKU, it is not only a loss of Hong Kong’s public medical system, but also all medical students, she said.

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