Seoul, July 22: Hospitals in South Korea are set to begin hiring about 7,700 trainee doctors on Monday. However, medical professors have warned of boycotting their training programmes in protest of the government's push to accept the resignations of striking trainees.
Months long standoffs with trainee doctors over the medical school admission quota hikes have shown no end in sight, as trainee doctors have been unresponsive to the government's appeasement steps, including a plan to abandon all punitive steps against striking trainee doctors, Yonhap news agency reported.
More than 90 per cent of around 13,000 junior doctors left 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. Still, doctors have demanded that the government revisit the quota hike decision, claiming that medical schools cannot handle the increased enrollment.
Lim Hyun-taek, the President of the Korea Medical Association, said in a social media post that the government "must fully accept demands from trainee doctors and medical students," adding that doing so is "the only way" to resolve the standoff.
Last week, medical professors from the radiology department at the Catholic University of Korea stated that they will "never replace trainee doctors who are fighting against wrongful state policy with other trainees." The government has already finalised an admissions quota hike of approximately 1,500 students for medical schools next year to address problems stemming from the shortage of doctors.
