Jeonbuk Province Deploys 150 New Public Health Doctors to Medically Underserved Areas

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Jeonbuk Province announced on the 6th that it has deployed 150 new public health doctors to public health centers in cities and counties within the province, as well as to medically underserved areas such as island regions.

The 150 newly deployed public health doctors (98 medical doctors, 13 dentists, 39 Korean medicine doctors) are appointed as fixed-term public officials and assigned to public health centers, health sub-centers, public hospitals, and emergency medical institutions in medically underserved areas within the province. They will serve as the "health guardians" of the residents for three years, responsible for regional public health care.

This year, 141 of the 150 newly assigned personnel were placed in rural health institutions. In particular, specialists and interns were concentrated in the eastern mountainous health care centers, public medical institutions, and island areas.

Last year, 16 specialists were deployed, but this year, the number of specialists has been expanded to 30, contributing to resolving the imbalance in medically underserved areas.

In medically underserved areas such as Muju, Jangsu, Imsil, and Sunchang Health Care Centers, internal medicine, pediatrics, and anesthesiology and pain medicine were prioritized for deployment. To strengthen the emergency medical system in emergency medical vulnerable areas, thoracic surgery was assigned to Jinan County Medical Center.

Specialists were deployed to island areas such as Wido and Eocheongdo to enable rapid response in case of emergency patients, and efforts were made to provide high-quality medical services to residents in medically vulnerable areas through efficient deployment of public health doctors.

Including the 150 newly deployed this time, a total of 373 public health doctors are assigned in Jeonbuk Province: 347 at city and county public health centers and health sub-centers, 1 provincial epidemiologist, 26 at public hospitals such as Gunsan Medical Center, and 3 at emergency medical institutions in medically underserved areas.

A provincial official said, "We expect that this new deployment of public health doctors will help expand medical personnel for COVID-19 response and alleviate the imbalance in medically underserved areas."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.