Medical professors in South Korea warn of boycotting junior doctors’ training amid standoff

Seoul, July 20 – Some medical professors in South Korea on Saturday warned to boycott training programmes for junior doctors in protest of the government’s push for accepting the resignations of striking trainees and the medical school admission quota hikes.

Professors of the radiology department at Catholic University said in a statement that they would not take part in education and training programmes for trainee doctors set to join the course in the second half of this year as long as the government goes ahead with “wrongful policy measures”, Yonhap news agency reported.

More than 90 per cent of around 13,000 junior doctors walked off their jobs in February in the form of resignations against the government’s plan to sharply raise medical school admissions, and hospitals accepted resignations from 7,648 trainees upon the government’s request this week.

The government is recruiting new trainees to minimise the impact of the mass resignations, and hospitals have sought 7,707 training doctors combined for the training programme set to be launched in September, according to the health ministry.

“We’ve made it clear that we will never replace training doctors who are fighting against wrongful state policy with other trainees,” the professors said. “If the government and the hospital push ahead with the recruitment plan, normal training will never be possible.”

Catholic University professors serve as senior doctors at St. Mary’s Hospital in Seoul, one of the five major general hospitals in the capital city, as well as seven training hospitals.

More professors are expected to follow suit as the school’s emergency response committee for professors said it will announce an official stance next week.

Amid deepening medical service disruptions, the government had presented a set of measures to convince the striking doctors to return to work but a majority of them refused to return to work.

Doctors have urged the government to revisit the quota hike decision, claiming that medical schools cannot handle the increased enrollment, which will compromise the quality of medical education and ultimately the country’s medical services.

Despite strong opposition from doctors, the government has already finalised an admissions quota hike of some 1,500 students for medical schools for next year to address problems stemming from the shortage of doctors.