Medical School Admission Quota Increased by 2,000, Medical Community "Unilateral Decision Without Consultation" (Comprehensive)

Medical Community Strongly Opposes Government's Unilateral Announcement
Lee Pil-su, President of the Korean Medical Association, Immediately Resigns

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

Minister Cho Hong-gyu of the Ministry of Health and Welfare is announcing the scale of the increase in medical school admission quotas for the 2025 academic year at the Government Seoul Office on the 6th. [Image source=Ministry of Health and Welfare]

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 College of Medicine in 1998. At that time, the medical school quota was 3,507, which decreased to 3,058 by 2006 after the 2000 separation of drug prescribing and dispensing, and has since been frozen.

Immediately after the announcement, Lee Pil-su, president of the Korea Medical Association (KMA), expressed his intention to resign. In a letter titled “A Message to the Members of the Korea Medical Association,” he stated, “I deeply regret all the current circumstances and now wish to relinquish all my authority and roles as the president of the KMA.”

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

Questions were also raised about whether expanding medical school quotas would actually solve essential medical care issues. Woo Bong-sik, director of the KMA Medical Policy Research Institute, pointed out, “The issue of medical school quotas should have been approached delicately and calculated on the premise that essential medical care problems have been resolved. What matters is how to sustain essential medical care; simply increasing numbers is meaningless.” Ryu Hyun-wook, planning director of the Korean Society of Emergency Medicine, said, “We will have to wait and see how the medical school quota issue affects the resolution of essential medical care problems. We also need to observe how other issues, such as medical fees, are supplemented.”

Choi Dae-jip, former president of the KMA, criticized the decision through a statement from the Provisional Party for Regime Change (tentative name), saying, “The national health and medical policy decisions that directly affect the health and lives of the people have become a wild gambling table for swindlers. The reckless and massive expansion of medical school quotas is a violent act that will collapse substantial medical education and destroy the Korean medical system itself.” He added, “It will also completely deplete the pool of science and engineering talents, severely undermining the country’s industrial competitiveness.”

Meanwhile, as promised, the KMA is expected to transition to a non-standing committee system after the executive resigns en masse. First, the KMA delegate council will hold an operations committee meeting within the day. The meeting is in response to the KMA’s official letter requesting the convening of an extraordinary general meeting regarding the formation of the non-standing committee. Subsequently, the KMA plans to hold an emergency standing board meeting the next day to discuss future response directions.

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