Amid mounting concerns about inadequate medical student education due to a drastic increase in their enrollment quota from 2025, government officials expressed an intention to obligate the sharing of cadavers for anatomy dissection among schools if supply fails to meet demand.

Noting that a corpse can only be obtained through donations from patients and their guardians, critics pointed out that it cannot be used regardless of the donor's intention.

The government made such a remark at Thursday's daily briefing by the Central Accident Management Headquarters.

Concerns are mounting within the medical community about insufficient medical education infrastructure after the expansion of medical school admission quotas, especially about the possible shortage of cadavers for anatomy practice because cadavers are available only by donations from patients and their guardians.

Currently, donated cadavers can be used only in hospitals where the donor has declared their intention to donate, and so the supply varies from hospital to hospital. The Health and Welfare Ministry’s comment means it would remove walls between hospitals to use donated cadavers.

"In Korea, about 1,200 cadavers are donated a year. However, only about 800 cadavers are used in medical schools,” Second Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Park Min-soo said. "That leaves about 400 cadavers unused. Even among the 800 cadavers used, some schools have an excess while others experience a shortage."

Park pointed out that it is a problem of the current system in which donors designate a specific institution to use their cadaver, blocking the pathway for other institutions to use it.

"Therefore, we will improve this system," he said.

To improve the system, he mentioned a method in which even if a donor donates to a specific institution, if the donation is sufficient to meet the needs of that school, it can be shared with other schools when it is left over.

"In this way, I think we can create a system so that (cadavers) can be redistributed to schools that need them," Park said. "If this is not enough, we can also consider importing. Some foreign countries import cadavers and use them for medical students’ training."

However, critics predicted problems with changing the system, pointing out that as the supply of cadavers is determined by the donations of patients and their guardians, some donors will resist the situation where donated cadavers are not used by donated schools but somewhere else according to the government’s needs.