60 Hospitals Selected for Residency Training Environment Innovation...Up to 300 Million Won in Support

Ministry of Health and Welfare to Strengthen Support for Attending Physician System and Residency Training Enhancement
35 Tertiary General Hospitals Participating... Additional Applications Accepted in September

The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced on September 11 that a total of 60 training hospitals, including 35 tertiary general hospitals and 2 general hospitals, have been selected for the "2025 Residency Training Environment Innovation Support Project," marking the official start of efforts to innovate residency training environments.

The Residency Training Environment Innovation Support Project is designed to help training hospitals focus on improving the residency training environment by supporting the establishment of training systems for eight key departments: internship, internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics and adolescent medicine, emergency medicine, cardiothoracic surgery, neurology, and neurosurgery. The initiative aims to enhance the status of residents as trainees and to ultimately improve the quality of medical care by investing in the development of specialized medical professionals.

With the launch of the project at the 60 selected training hospitals, it is expected that these institutions will begin making substantial improvements to residency training conditions. Hospitals will systematize their training programs and focus on creating an environment that enables residents to strengthen the knowledge, attitudes, and competencies required of specialists.

Specifically, attending physicians will have their roles divided into chief attending physicians, who are responsible for overall residency training management and quality control by hospital and specialty, and dedicated educational attending physicians, who are in charge of resident education and counseling. This division of roles will allow for systematic training management. In addition, training hospitals will create environments conducive to comprehensive training for residents by improving organizational structures, budgets, facilities, and equipment related to residency training.

In particular, while interns have previously either lacked designated attending physicians or had such systems operated individually by hospitals, participating hospitals in this project will now designate attending physicians specifically responsible for interns. These physicians will provide structured educational programs to help interns apply the knowledge acquired in medical school to real patient care.

Starting this month, the government will provide support to participating hospitals for the assignment of roles to attending physicians, allowances for attending physicians in response to increased training duties, and costs for resident education operations (such as in-hospital education, case conferences, and workshops). For the improvement of training facilities, support will be strengthened, especially for regional training hospitals, with funding for facilities and equipment needed to establish training infrastructure within each hospital ranging from 30 million won to up to 300 million won, based on each hospital's needs.

With the recruitment of residents in the second half of the year leading to a certain level of recovery in resident numbers, training hospitals and departments not selected for this round but wishing to participate in the project may submit additional applications until next month.

Kim Kukil, Director of Health and Medical Policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, stated, "This innovation support project will serve as a foundation for residents to grow into competent medical professionals who will lead the future healthcare system. We will ensure the project proceeds smoothly to bring about real change in the training field and will actively gather feedback from those on the ground."

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