Next Year’s Medical School Enrollment Increased by 2,000, Medical Community Says "Reckless Decision Without Consultation"

Medical Community Strongly Opposes Government's Unilateral Announcement

The government’s decision to increase the admission quota for medical schools by 2,000 students next year has sparked strong opposition from the medical community. The increase of 2,000 students amounts to 65.4% of this year’s quota of 3,058 students.

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On the 6th, the Ministry of Health and Welfare held a Health and Medical Policy Deliberation Committee (HMPDC) meeting at the government Seoul office and announced the scale of the increase in medical school admissions for the 2025 academic year. This expansion of medical school quotas is the first in 27 years since the establishment of Jeju National University Medical School in 1998. At that time, the medical school quota was 3,507 students, and after the separation of prescribing and dispensing in 2006, the quota was frozen at 3,058 students.

Immediately after the announcement, Yang Dong-ho, chairman of the Gwangju Medical Association’s delegate council and head of the Korean Medical Association’s (KMA) negotiation team in the medical issues consultative body that has been discussing medical school quota increases with the government since last year, said, “We suddenly learned about the scale of the increase through media reports without any prior consultation. Announcing the increase without reflecting the medical community’s opinions seems like an intention to escalate into a head-on confrontation. I have nothing to say.” Kim Yi-yeon, spokesperson for the KMA, also protested, saying, “We have never been officially informed by the KMA about the scale of the increase even once.”

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