Senior doctors at Asan Medical Center to take a week off from July 4

Medical professors at Asan Medical Center, one of the five largest tertiary hospitals in Korea, said they would walk off their jobs for a week starting on July 4, in protest against the government’s policy to increase medical school seats by 49 percent in 2025. 

AMC’s announcement followed senior doctors’ actions at hospitals affiliated with Seoul National University (SNU) and three Severance Hospitals who also vowed to stop practicing medicine indefinitely.

On Monday evening, the emergency response committee of professors at Ulsan National University College of Medicine, affiliated with AMC, said they conducted a survey of professors at AMC and found that 292 of 369 respondents, or 79.1 percent, were in favor of the one-week walkout on July 4.

Of those, 54 percent said they supported extending the strike after a week, based on government policy, while 30.2 percent of professors agreed to an indefinite walkout.

As a result, the emergency response committee said professors at AMC would take a one-week leave of absence from July 4, and then decide whether to extend the leave depending on changes in government policy.

In addition, 225 AMC doctors, or 60.9 percent of AMC’s faculty, are participating in the June 18 strike led by the Korean Medical Association, a group of about 130,000 doctors in Korea.  

The AMC professors have reduced their clinic hours by taking vacations, annual leave, or attending morning clinics only. 

Senior doctors’ decisions for an indefinite walkout is spreading among the so-called Big Five hospitals. 

Professors at hospitals affiliated with SNU stopped practicing medicine on June 17, and the emergency response committee of professors at Yonsei University College of Medicines, affiliated with three Severance Hospitals, followed suit to take a leave of absence from June 27. 

The two remaining Big Five hospitals -- Samsung Medical Center and Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital -- have yet to decide on an indefinite walkout but they are participating in the KMA’s general strike on June 18. 

The Korea Severe Disease Association, a patient organization, issued a statement on Tuesday regarding the doctors' collective leave and demanded that the government "deal with doctors who are acting illegally according to the law."

"Professors from SNU and some doctors from the KMA have finally gone on an illegal collective leave despite public condemnation," the patients’ group said, adding, that these doctors and educators have “abandoned their Hippocratic oath.”