Ministry of Health and Welfare: "Increase of 2,000 Medical Students Decided Based on Multiple Scientific Methodologies"

"Timing, scale, and methods of increase are policy decisions
Considering it takes at least 6 years to train doctors
From 2031, 2,000 annually, 10,000 by 2035 decided"

The Ministry of Health and Welfare reiterated that the reason for deciding to increase the medical school quota by 2,000 students was based on multiple scientific methodological research reports predicting a shortage of 10,000 doctors by 2035, which is less than 10 years away, leading to the decision to expand medical school admissions.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 13th, Park Min-su, the 2nd Vice Minister of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, stated at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters briefing on doctors' collective action, "The government has initiated medical reform to address the current crisis in essential medical care, the collapse of local healthcare, and the rapid increase in medical demand due to aging. We have summarized the long-awaited reform tasks of the medical community into four major medical reform tasks, and the increase in medical school quotas is one of these tasks."

He further explained that the decision to increase medical school quotas was based on research reports using 'scientific methodologies,' and that the timing, scale, and methods of the increase were determined through policy decisions.

Vice Minister Park said, "Three reports from the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, the Korea Development Institute (KDI), and Seoul National University all objectively forecast a shortage of 10,000 doctors by 2035 through common projection methods, and these were discussed and reviewed." He added, "Among the three supply and demand projection reports referenced by the government, only the KDI report suggested the scale of the increase, and the researcher proposed gradually increasing the quota by 5-7% annually from 2024 to 2030."

He continued, "However, the timing, scale, and methods of the increase are policy decisions. Considering that it takes at least six years to train a doctor, the government judged that it could no longer delay expanding the medical workforce to resolve the current essential medical crisis and achieve a balance in medical supply and demand." He added, "The decision was made in 2025 to increase the quota by 2,000 students annually from 2031 to supply 10,000 doctors by 2035."

Additionally, he said, "According to research by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, there is currently a shortage of at least 5,000 doctors. The current shortage will be absorbed through workforce redistribution proposed by the medical community and efficiency improvements in the medical system due to technological advances, while future shortages will be addressed through quota increases."

Vice Minister Park stated, "This decision was made after sufficient consultation with the medical community and various stakeholders. The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Korean Medical Association held four meetings in the bilateral consultative body 'Medical Issues Consultative Body' regarding the projection results, and an additional public forum with supply and demand projection experts was held, where the need for a significant increase was already discussed."

He criticized the medical community, saying, "The doctors' organizations only repeatedly claimed that there is no shortage of doctors."

Vice Minister Park said, "While major overseas countries such as Germany, Japan, and France, which have more doctors than South Korea, have increased their number of doctors in preparation for aging, South Korea has faced a shortage of doctors for over a decade based on various grounds but has not increased the number of doctors by even one in 19 years. We also referred to the desired increase scale and educational conditions of the 40 universities nationwide that have medical schools."

He added, "The government plans to thoroughly explain the process of deciding to increase medical school quotas to the court during the trial process and will transparently disclose all details to the public."

Meanwhile, at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters meeting held that day, the government decided to prepay health insurance benefits to training hospitals experiencing financial difficulties after the departure of residents.

Health insurance prepayment is a system where a certain amount of benefits is paid in advance before treatment, and later settled against the actual incurred benefits. The government plans to prepay 30% of the benefits received during the same period last year to training hospitals that meet the requirements, using monitoring results of treatment volume and benefit trends after the collective action on an institution-by-institution basis.

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