Nam In-soon: "Refund of Exam Fee Despite Cancellation of Medical Licensing Exam Proxy... Waste of Administrative Resources"

"Unprecedented Unfair Cases in the National Examination for Healthcare Professionals"

On the 8th, the practical exam day of the 85th Medical Licensing Examination, officials are moving at the Korea Health Personnel Licensing Examination Institute in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul. Photo by Moon Honam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Seo So-jung] It has been revealed that 2,713 candidates who canceled the practical exam for the 85th Medical Licensing Examination in 2021 violated the guideline requiring direct cancellation by the individual and instead collectively canceled on behalf of others, receiving a 50% refund of the exam fee.

According to the 'Medical Licensing Examination Registration and Refund Status' submitted as data for the National Assembly audit by Nam In-soon, a member of the Health and Welfare Committee of the National Assembly (Democratic Party), 3,172 candidates registered for this year's practical exam, 438 took the exam, and 2,713 candidates (excluding 21 candidates eligible for exam fee reduction) received a 50% refund of the exam fee.

The Korea Health Personnel Licensing Examination Institute (KHPLEI) refunded a total of 841 million KRW, 310,000 KRW per canceled candidate.

According to KHPLEI, since cancellation of the national exam must reflect the candidate's own intention, candidates are required to apply for cancellation themselves. The cancellation method requires logging into the KHPLEI website to fill out a cancellation application form or submitting it directly via fax or mail to be eligible for a refund. However, contrary to these guidelines, this year’s medical practical exam cancellations were submitted collectively by schools on behalf of individuals, and this was done in just one day on August 24.

Although schools attached power of attorney documents, since the candidates’ intentions were not directly confirmed, KHPLEI conducted individual phone calls 3 to 4 times per person over six days from August 26 to 31 to verify the authenticity of each cancellation.

Representative Nam said, “Despite violating the guideline by submitting cancellations collectively on behalf of candidates, KHPLEI refunded the exam fees after making individual phone calls, which is unprecedented in the history of health personnel national exams,” and added, “This is an unfair case that wasted significant administrative resources due to improper consideration.”

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