[Inside Chodong] Hospitals Must Not Stop

"We will strive to produce meaningful results as much as possible to present the people with a Christmas gift." On the 11th of last month, the People Power Party made this bold promise, but the ruling and opposition parties' government consultation body was dissolved after about 20 days without any substantial discussion or agreement. Before debating whether to pause the talks temporarily or disband altogether, President Yoon Seok-yeol declared martial law, and the phrase 'punishment of non-returning residents' in the martial law proclamation added fuel to the already extreme medical-government conflict.

Even amid the impeachment crisis, when the government stated it would "steadily pursue medical reform tasks," the medical community shouted "medical school quota expansion null and void" and demanded that the medical school quotas for the 2025 academic year be reverted to the original point. There were even demands not to carry over unfilled spots from early admissions to regular admissions and to drastically reduce the medical school quotas for the 2026 academic year. The opposition party and the medical community proposed a public forum to discuss these issues, but the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Education rejected it, causing the plan to fall through. Ultimately, the medical crisis, which has continued for nearly a year, is likely to become even more complicated rather than being resolved after the new year.

It is already taken for granted in the medical field that residents will not return in the spring of next year. Since there are no residents to assist professors in surgeries and patient care, the Big 5 hospitals in Seoul have begun hiring fellow-level doctors who have just become specialists. This is why young doctors from provincial areas are moving to the metropolitan area, and specialists working in the outskirts of the metropolitan area are relocating to tertiary hospitals in Seoul. Provincial hospitals try to retain them by offering incentives such as "reducing on-call duties" and "increasing salaries," but it seems to be difficult.

Many general practitioners who resigned collectively earlier this year without completing their residency training are adapting to their lives according to their own choices. When resigned residents flooded the job market, they were mocked as "doctors earning 3 million won a month," but as patients who could not get into university hospitals flocked to secondary hospitals, the clinics where these doctors found employment became even busier. Although they gave up training, they have diligently gained clinical experience over the past 10 months, leading to salary increases and a sense of fulfillment as doctors.

University hospital operating rooms, judging that the residency crisis will not be easily resolved, are actively training physician assistant (PA) nurses. Although the Nursing Act has passed, the scope of physician assistants is not clearly defined. Nevertheless, a university hospital official hinted, "Residents are absolutely necessary in surgical operating rooms, but PA nurses have already filled those positions," adding, "Recently, junior nurses have been diligently learning skin suturing techniques."

Whether the government's medical reform, which has lost momentum, can continue and how the accumulated dissatisfaction in the medical community will explode are unpredictable, but one thing is clear: hospitals must keep operating, and medical education must resume. If the government and political circles are not seriously considering 'importing' foreign doctors, they must present a compromise plan that gives residents and medical students a legitimate reason to return to hospitals and schools. If the environment to educate the increased number of medical school freshmen has not been prepared, universities themselves need to make the decision to adjust quotas. The medical community must also take a step back and present realistically achievable demands to gain public understanding and support. While the medical system has been halted for nearly a year and operated under an 'emergency medical system,' we are only engaging in repeated attrition battles, moving further away from resolving the crisis.

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