If I had to pick the three most-used words of the past year, they would be "increase" (as in medical students), "2,000 students," and "class of 2025."

Since Feb. 6, 2024, the lead paragraph of every article I wrote has been, “The government announced the medical school enrollment quota increase of 2,000 for the 2025 academic year.” Now that 2025 has arrived, '2,000 more students for 2025' is no longer relevant. The additional medical school enrollment quota for 2025 was fixed at 1,509 and has already entered "untouchable territory."

However, that doesn't mean efforts to secure 2,000 more medical students for 2026 have stopped. The same goes for the 1,509 already added, with some arguing for no further increases—or even reductions.

However, compared to this time last year when the debate over the size of the 2025 class was raging in the government and the medical community, with numbers ranging from zero to 300, 500, 1,000, and everything in between, no one is talking about numbers. Where have all those figures gone?

Looking back over the past year, the disappearance of the number was predictable.

The heated debate over numbers has been pushed aside amid the protracted conflict between the government and medical community and the emergence of a healthcare crisis.

Whenever the government announced new measures, people asked, 'Will this bring back the trainee doctors who resigned?' rather than whether the measures would resolve the medical school expansion issue. They already knew the answer.

The trainee doctors I spoke with answered sincerely but never failed to ask, "Why is the focus now on our return rather than the enrollment quota?"

After the September round of recruitment ended amid the controversy over the government’s attempt to split trainee doctors, the topic shifted to the three-party council of the government, political parties, and the medical community.

Even so, the issue was not whether the council would discuss the admissions quota issue but who would sit on the consultative body. After a tedious debate over whether the ruling or opposition parties initiated it, the council could not avoid the criticism that it was a nominal body.

In the meantime, the CSAT for the class of 2025 took place, and several more “last golden moments” (to resolve the crisis) came and went along the college entrance exam clock.

Since President Yoon Suk Yeol left office—leaving behind only a "mystery" about who decided to increase medical student numbers by 2,000—the government and medical community have debated whether to engage in talks at all.

But is it even a debate? The two sides aren't even talking to each other. Although the 2026 enrollment quota must be finalized within this month, the past three weeks have passed with related parties asking, “So, will the medical community and the government talk this time? Even the meeting between the speaker of the National Assembly and the Korean Medical Association on Monday ended without any numbers emerging, saying the government-doctor dialogue should precede it.

Amid this uncertainty, the Ministry of Health and Welfare proposed a plan on Wednesday, allowing universities to decide how many students to add in 2026—anywhere from zero to 2,000.

On the same day, the Korea Association of Medical Colleges (KAMC), an organization of medical school deans, told university presidents that the number of medical school students should return to the original enrollment quota of 3,058. Should we be pleased to see the return of a number? This time, the weight may not be on the additional students but on who will make the final decision.

The government says it is legally required to decide on the number of students for 2026 within this month.

However, 2024 was the year of legal and bureaucratic overreach, starting with the increase of 2,000 students. The overreach has led to controversy, and the 2,000 medical school students have been lost in the shuffle. A year from now, I hope we won't still be stuck revisiting missing numbers instead of discussing the 2027 quota.