The government-doctor conflict has finally been over a year.

Trainee doctors and medical students maintain their position not to return this year, too. President Yoon Seok Yeol has been suspended from office due to his short-lived declaration of martial law. Still, the government is sticking to its policy of increasing the number of medical students.

As a result, junior doctors and medical students have decided to continue their “struggle,” and the situation will likely be prolonged.

On Saturday, the Korean Medical Student Association held an extraordinary general meeting of all student representatives and voted to “proceed with the struggle for the 2025 academic year by submitting a leave of absence.”

The association decided to continue the struggle in 2025 to fulfill the demands of the medical school association at the expanded general student representative assembly in November. The student association had previously made an eight-point demand, including the complete nullification of the increase in medical school students.

With this resolution, students at 40 medical schools across the country will take a leave of absence, but “students in units or grades that cannot submit a leave of absence will join the struggle with equivalent actions.”

Park Dan, head of the Korean Intern Resident Association emergency committee, also met with the chairmen of the National Assembly's education and health-welfare committees on Dec. 19 and said that trainee doctors would “not go back” if the government sticks to the existing recruitment policy.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Park also predicted that trainee doctors and medical students are unlikely to return. Even a reduction in enrollment for the class of 2026 would not be a complete solution or a way to bring back medical students and residents.

“(The cuts) cannot solve the problem of medical students who entered this and next year's freshmen,” Park said, adding that the problem in the medical field is ”not just the number of medical students.”

The Barun Medicine Institute also issued a press release on Monday, demanding that the government “acknowledge the failure of the policy to increase medical students in the past year and apologize to trainee doctors, medical students, and the people.”

“It has been more than a year since the government caused the medical crisis,” the institute said. “The only solution to the current medical crisis is for the government to scrap all medical school capacity expansion policies, including the essential healthcare policy package.”

The institute said that if the government maintains the existing policy, junior doctors and medical students will not return.

“Even if they do return, 7,500 students a year is a terrible situation,” it said. “How can we educate so many students when professors at university hospitals are quitting because of overwork?”