Pressure mounts to end year-long government-doctor standoff

Resigned trainee doctors and medical students on leave of absence show few signs of returning soon, and medical professors are also quitting in droves.

Although the government-doctor conflict, sparked by the Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s unilateral push to increase the medical enrollment quota for 2025, has continued for over a year, the government has begun discussions on the quota for 2026, deteriorating the situation.

To resolve the conflict, voices are growing in and outside the medical community that the government should send the admissions quota for 2026 back to square one.

Junior doctors who left the medical field in February last year will unlikely return in the first half of this year. According to a report by Rep. Kang Gyeong-sook of the Rebuilding Korea Party titled “Recruitment status of resigned trainee doctors for the class of 2025” in January and February at eight national hospitals, the application rate was only in the 3 percent range at the highest.

Seoul National University Hospital recruited 573 medical residents among resigned trainee doctors in January. However, only 16 applied, recording a 2.8 percent application rate. In the first-year residency program, which recruits 154 residents, there were “zero” applicants. Kyungpook National University Hospital had six applicants for 189 positions, a 3.2 percent application rate. There were no applicants for the 80 intern positions.

The situation was similar at other national hospitals.

Gyengsang National University Hospital marked a 0 percent application rate for interns and first-year residents. Chonnam National University Hospital had only one applicant for its 256 residency positions but no interns. Jeonbuk National University Hospital recorded a 0 percent application rate for residents and two applicants for intern 73 positions. Jeju National University Hospital also showed a 0 percent application rate for interns. Chungbuk National University Hospital even had no applicants for residents and interns. Chungnam National University Hospital had only one applicant for 220 residency positions.

Unlike universities preparing for medical students' return, the students continue to "boycott classes.” O

Only 1,495 students at 40 medical schools, or 8.3 percent of the total on leave of absence, have expressed their intention to return to school. Seventy-one students from Chungbuk National University College of Medicine even issued a resolution on social media, stating that they will not return to school and continue their struggle until the government withdraws its reform policy, including medical school expansion.

The departure of professors silently filling the vacant positions of junior doctors is also alarming. Last year, the number of resigned medical professors exceeded 600. Provincial medical schools were hit harder.

According to data Rep. Kang received from the Ministry of Education, the number of resigned professors at 39 medical schools (excluding CHA University College of Medicine) totaled 623 last year, a significant increase from 563 in 2022 and 577 in 2023. Notably, 467 professors (75 percent) resigned before retirement age last year, over 1.5 times more than the 299 in 2022 and 379 in 2023.

Inje University College of Medicine had the most retirements with 72, followed by Hallym University College of Medicine with 41, Eulji University College of Medicine with 38, Yonsei University College of Medicine with 34, Seoul National University College of Medicine with 23, and Soon Chung Hyang University College of Medicine with 21. Over half of resigned professors had reached retirement age at Yonsei University and Seoul National University.

People within and outside the medical community maintained that the government must bring the discussion on the medical school enrollment quota for 2026 back to square one and take time to fix the problems in the medical field resulting from its increase of 2,000 medical students for this year.

In other words, they called for rediscussing the medical school enrollment issue from the ground up.

“We’re worried more about the future,” said Kim Sung-geun, a spokesman for the Korean Medical Association (KMA), on MBC radio's talk show. “for instance, anatomy labs have great significance in becoming a doctor because it teaches them how to experience the human body. Normally, there should be about six or seven students in a group, but in severe cases, there may be even 20 students."

Clinical training in hospitals after the third year is also important to experience patients and participate in treatment, and the size of the hospital also matters. Kim noted that the number of professors and patients is also essential. However, if the number of students is tripled or quadrupled, there is a possibility that (such opportunities) will be reduced by one-third or one-fourth, mathematically, he added.

The government has offered several options for resigned trainee doctors to return. Still, Kim continued, there are no conclusive favors or promises not to give any disadvantages to junior doctors wanting to return.

“The problem of educating medical students in two grades does not end at the end of the six years of education, but continues to the next stage of training, becoming a specialist, and then becoming a doctor,” he said. “If there is no solution to this, there are arguments that we should not recruit medical students for next year.”