South Korean trainee doctors strike against plans to increase medical school admissions, fearing it will harm healthcare quality amidst license suspension threats and senior doctors’ protests.
IN SHORT
South Korean Trainee Doctors Strike Over Medical School Admission Increase
- The senior doctors’ action won’t worsen hospital operations, as they have pledged to continue working even after submitting their resignations.
- About 12,000 interns and medical residents have faced license suspensions due to their refusal to end their strikes.
- Trainee doctors in South Korea have been on strike since 20 February over a plan to increase the number of students admitted to medical school from 2025.
- The strike has forced several hospitals to turn back patients and delay procedures.
- Striking doctors oppose the government’s plan to raise the medical school admission cap by two-thirds, arguing that it will negatively impact South Korea’s medical services.
- The Medical Professors Association of Korea president, Kim Chang-soo, warns that increasing medical school admissions will not only ruin medical school education but also cause the country’s healthcare system to collapse.
Trainee doctors have been on strike since 20 February over a plan to increase the number of students admitted each year to medical school from 2025 to address shortages in rural areas and greater demand on services caused by South Korea’s rapidly ageing population.
But the striking doctors, who make up 93% of the trainee workforce, claim the recruitment of 2,000 additional students a year from 2025 will compromise the quality of services. Critics have said the authorities should focus on improving the pay and working conditions of trainee doctors first.
The strike by the trainee doctors over a plan to increase the number of students admitted each year to medical school from 2025 has forced several hospitals to turn back patients and delay procedures.
The senior doctors’ action won’t likely cause an immediate worsening of hospital operations in South Korea because they have said they would continue to work even after submitting their resignations. But prospects for an early end to the medical impasse were also dim, as the doctors’ planned action comes after President Yoon Suk Yeol called for talks with doctors while suggesting a possible softening of punitive steps against the striking junior doctors.
About 12,000 interns and medical residents have faced impending suspensions of their licenses over their refusal to end their strikes, which have caused hundreds of cancelled surgeries and other treatments at their hospitals.
They oppose the government’s plan to increase the country’s medical school admission cap by two-thirds, saying schools can’t handle such a steep increase in students and that it would eventually hurt South Korea’s medical services. But officials say more doctors are urgently needed because South Korea has a rapidly aging population and its doctor-to-population ratio is one of the lowest in the developed world.
“It is clear that increasing medical school admissions will not only ruin medical school education but cause our country’s healthcare system to collapse,” Kim Chang-soo, the president of the Medical Professors Association of Korea, told reporters.
The president of the Medical Professors Association of Korea, Kim Chang-soo, said professors will start scaling back outpatient treatment to focus on emergency and severely ill patients, while others will submit their resignations.
Thousands of senior doctors held a rally in Seoul against the government’s medical school quota hike plan as Prime Minister Han Duck-soo hinted at the possible suspension of medical licenses for striking trainee doctors.
The trainee doctors have been on strike since Feb 20, and President Yoon Suk Yeol, who has made healthcare reforms one of his signature policy initiatives, has vowed not to back down on implementing the admissions plan.
South Korea’s government has also threatened to suspend the licences of the doctors who have walked off their jobs, but on Sunday Yoon appeared to seek a more conciliatory approach and urged prime minister Han Duck-soo to seek “flexible measures” in dealing with the suspension.