Professors are responding to the government's expansion of recruiting trainee doctors for the second half of 2024 with a "boycott" to protest the initiative.

At the Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine, professors at the dermatology and psychiatric departments have issued statements and declared that they would not recruit trainee doctors for the second half of the year, following the example of the radiology and ophthalmology departments.

Catholic Medical Center, which recruits and trains doctors from eight affiliated hospitals, has announced the recruitment of 21 dermatology residents for the second half-year -- six first-year, four second-year, six third-year, and five fourth-year residents.

“The government is not taking responsibility for its misguided policy and is pushing ahead with implementing recruitment for the second half of the year, which could further undermine essential medical care,” the university’s Department of Dermatology said in a statement on Wednesday.

The statement added that the department opposes recruiting trainee doctors and has no intention of implementing it for the second half-year, conveying its position to the Training and Education Department of the Catholic Central Medical Center.

The dermatology professors said they would “refuse all education and guidance” if the recruitment went ahead even though they had no intention of recruiting new residents, let alone those in their senior year. The reason for this stance was to “prevent innocent victims from applying for the second half-year recruitment”

“It’s been more than five months since doctors and students, who could not overlook Korean healthcare’s collapse due to the medical school student increase and the essential care policy package, have given up the positions they have won by working their entire lives,” they said. “We submitted resignation letters in February but the hospital forced us to change our resignations to June 4 to reduce the government's legal liability.”

“If the government was responsible and willing to revive essential medicine, it would never have recruited doctors for the second half of the year while nothing has changed,” they said. “We cannot help but interpret it as the government having a different motive.”

“We will only consider our colleagues and students to be those selected through normal procedures and fair competition,” they said. “We cannot allow someone to usurp the positions of our colleagues through an abnormal and unfair process.”

“We unequivocally reject the Health and Welfare Ministry’s unilateral attempt to fill the positions of resigned trainee doctors with other junior doctors,” they added.

The professors of the Department of Psychiatry at the same medical school also issued a statement on Thursday, opposing the second half-year recruitment of trainee doctors, they would wait for existing residents.

“We oppose this unilateral process,” the psychiatry professors said, calling it “an irresponsible move that removes any clue to problem solving and shifts all responsibility to the frontline faculty and residents.”

“The relationship between faculty and residents in a training hospital is the sum of formal and informal processes that are integrated and intensive with the goal of training specialists in the field,” the psychiatry professors said. “The selection and training of residents is a long process involving many faculty and residents. We cannot accept unilateral actions that seek to alter this status quo artificially.”

“The residents who have submitted their resignations in protest of the medical school's recruitment policy are members of the Department of Psychiatry and should be protected from any unwanted disadvantages or changes in their status,” they said. “We oppose the government's unjustified resignation process and the unilateral initiation of the recruitment process for the second half-year. We will continue to persevere and work to ensure that the current residents in this class can continue their training at the Catholic University of Korea School of Psychiatry.”

Yonsei University College of Medicine professors have also announced their intention to boycott training for interns, calling for the Big Six hospitals to stop recruiting trainee doctors for the second half-year.