Less than half of Korean doctors are satisfied with their jobs with 20 percent showing dissatisfaction, the Korean Medical Association said in a report Tuesday.

The Research Institute of Healthcare Policy, a research arm of KMA, conducted a survey of 8,564 doctors over seven weeks from November, via email, asking about their job satisfaction by sex, age, hospital type and patient treatment. The survey also included categories of working environment, healthcare system, diagnoses and other activities.

According to the result, 45.7 percent of respondents were satisfied with their job, including 6.4 percent who were very satisfied, while 19.4 percent were dissatisfied, including 4.6 percent who were very dissatisfied.

The poll indicated a positive correlation between job satisfaction and hospital size. In the survey, 38.4 percent of doctors working at clinics, relatively small in size, had the lowest job satisfaction rates. In contrast, 46.3 percent at first-tier hospitals, with 30 beds or more, 50.4 percent at second-tier hospitals (with beds between 30 and 500), and 53.6 percent at third-tier hospitals (with 500 beds or more) cited higher levels of satisfaction.

Regarding service category, professors expressed the highest level of job satisfaction with 59.7 percent, followed by researchers, administrative personnel, and others. Medical residents (38.5 percent) and those who operated private clinics had lower satisfaction compared to others.

The study also revealed that those without direct patient interaction (55.8 percent) were more satisfied than those that treated patients directly (44.8 percent).

Female doctors marked 7.3 percent higher satisfaction rate than males’, while those working at public institutions ranked 10.9 percent greater than those working in private ones.

Lee Yong-min, an official at the research institute, said, “We will try our best to induce policymakers to improve the quality of lives for doctors based on these results.”

KMA will announce the final survey results in early May.