Government Slows Down Medical School Quota Expansion... Immediate Crisis Averted but Challenges Remain

Government Essential Medical Innovation Strategy Meeting
Government Goal: 'Regional National University Hospitals = Seoul Big 5 Hospitals'
Medical School Quota Expansion Scale Excluded
Analysis Suggests Consideration of Medical Community Facing Total Strike Threat

No Time to Spare
Challenges Remain on How Many Medical Students to Admit and Manage Supply
Long-term Change Needed in Perception of Regional Hospitals

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 19th, the government did not announce the scale of the increase in medical school quotas at the ‘Essential Medical Care Innovation Strategy Meeting,’ but reaffirmed its intention to expand from the 2025 college entrance exams. However, there is not much time left. Since the number of additional medical students must be coordinated by March next year at the latest, the government must draw up a blueprint with the medical community by the end of the year. There has been no agreement with the Korean Medical Association on how much to increase, and various claims are flooding in regarding the expansion of medical school quotas.

Government Appears to Adjust Pace Considering Medical Community’s Sentiment

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The Ministry of Health and Welfare seems to be adjusting the pace, considering the medical community’s opposition. The main point is to raise the capacity of national university hospitals to the level of the ‘Big 5 Hospitals (Seoul National University, Seoul Asan, Severance, Samsung Seoul, Seoul St. Mary’s)’ to prevent the concentration of patients from provinces to the metropolitan area. They plan to lift restrictions on personnel expenses at national university hospitals and increase the government subsidy rate for hospital facilities and equipment from 25% to 75%. There is also a plan to invest 1 trillion won to raise medical fees for essential and regional medical services.

The scale of the increase in medical school quotas was not announced. It is analyzed that the government considered the medical community’s stance, which threatened a general strike if the increase was announced without medical-government negotiations. The Korean Medical Association expressed a positive stance on the government’s ‘Essential Medical Care Innovation Strategy,’ saying it is encouraging that the government showed its determination to take responsibility for the lives and health of the people by ensuring uninterrupted essential medical care. However, Park Min-su, the second vice minister of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, emphasized again the intention to expand medical school quotas, saying, “The idea that expanding medical school quotas has no trickle-down effect on increasing the number of essential medical doctors is a theory from the 1970s,” and “We will definitely increase medical school quotas from 2025 after consultations with the medical community.”

The government, which had shown a willingness to increase quotas by more than 1,000 dramatically, seems to have put out the urgent fire by emphasizing coordination with the medical community, but many challenges remain. At least by March next year, a blueprint on how many medical students to increase must be drawn so that universities can proceed with the 2025 entrance exam recruitment. However, the ‘Medical Issues Consultative Body,’ a medical-government discussion body on medical school quotas, has held 14 meetings since early this year but is reported to have made no progress. The consultative body is a matter under the ‘September 4 Medical-Government Agreement,’ which states that discussions on medical school quotas are to be held with the medical community. The gap between the government, which says quotas must increase significantly due to aging, and the medical community, which says there is no shortage of doctors due to low birth rates, remains wide.

Even if a dramatic agreement is reached between the medical and government sides, stakeholders have different claims regarding the method of expanding medical school quotas. The opposition parties support increasing medical school quotas but attach conditions such as establishing regional medical schools and public medical schools. Local government heads have also demanded the establishment of regional national medical schools, calling it a “long-cherished wish of local residents.”

“Focusing on Filling Quotas at Provincial National Universities Is Right”

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Kim Yoon, a professor of Medical Management at Seoul National University College of Medicine, pointed out, “Since time is limited, it is a hundred times better in terms of cost and efficiency to fill quotas mainly at provincial national university medical schools with established infrastructure rather than establishing new medical schools.”

Establishing a new medical school takes 10 years just for designation, approval, and construction processes. More than 110 full-time faculty members must be secured, including 25 basic medical science professors and 85 clinical medicine professors, and a training hospital with more than 500 beds for residents must be established. These costs alone amount to 300 billion won. Most proponents of new medical schools have not devised a blueprint on how to finance such astronomical costs.

On the other hand, provincial national university medical schools have full-time professors with over 10 years of patient care and surgical experience and secured medical infrastructure. The only difficulty is securing residents in specialties such as thoracic surgery due to the concentration in Seoul. For this reason, provincial national university hospital directors say that increasing medical school quotas is urgent, unlike the Korean Medical Association. The Ministry of Health and Welfare will soon start a demand survey from each medical school on how much they want to expand their quotas.

However, it is analyzed that increasing the mandatory regional talent admission rate, currently 40% at provincial medical schools, is necessary to solve the metropolitan concentration problem. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, 8 out of 10 medical students from the region remain in the area to provide medical services. A ministry official said, “There is a direction to increase the regional talent admission rate as much as possible, but it is not a finalized matter.”

In the long term, it is also pointed out that the perception of local residents toward provincial hospitals must change. Even if the government raises provincial national university hospitals to the level of the Big 5 hospitals, if the perception that “major treatments must be done in Seoul” remains among provincial residents, the effectiveness of the policy will be greatly reduced. Last year, the number of provincial patients visiting the Big 5 hospitals was 710,000, a 40% increase over 10 years. Their medical fees alone amounted to 2.2 trillion won. A medical community official said, “In Korea, where medical accessibility is excellent due to transportation developments such as KTX, how to solve this problem is a task given to the government.”

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