[Inside Chodong] Medical School Quota Expansion Must Lead to True 'Medical Reform'

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"I was accepted to a regional medical school and Seoul National University College of Dentistry. Which should I choose?" "If the medical school quota increases next year, will the competition get even tougher with repeat and multiple-time test takers?"

While the government announced the 'Essential Medical Policy Package' on the 1st, which effectively assumes an expansion of medical school quotas, the medical school craze intensified with the recent regular admission results. As usual, students who scored the highest on the College Scholastic Ability Test chose medical schools, and even though the government plans to increase the number of doctors by 15,000 over the next decade, expectations remain high that doctors' job satisfaction will not decline, given the high salaries and job security without retirement age. Since the average income of doctors is said to be seven times higher than that of average workers, it is understandable that freshmen admitted to top engineering or natural science departments choose to retake the exam for medical school, and parents even hope for their kindergarten children to enter medical school.

The government's repeated failure to finalize the increase in medical school quotas due to opposition from medical associations has reaffirmed the social status and influence of doctors, who are often criticized for 'group selfishness.' On this day as well, the core figure for the policy implementation?the scale of medical school quota increase?was postponed, and estimates ranged from as low as 350 to 500 to as high as 2,000 additional students, making it hard to predict. Collective doctor strikes and work stoppages are already being mentioned. Perhaps for this reason, Park Min-su, the 2nd Vice Minister of Health and Welfare, expressed strong determination in a press briefing, saying, "If we announce the increase in medical school quotas, there will be significant opposition from the medical community. If we fail this time, Korea will cease to exist. We are prepared with a solemn resolve."

Local governments and universities across regions are filled with anticipation. They intend to raise the status of their universities and regions by expanding medical school quotas or attracting new medical schools. Of course, increasing the number of doctors produced and retaining more doctors in local areas will relieve medical blind spots in rural areas and positively address regional medical imbalances. If the government intends to increase medical school quotas starting from next year's admissions as originally planned, the scale of the increase must be finalized by April at the latest to avoid disruptions in the college admission schedule.

Through prolonged discussions, a broad consensus has formed that a bold policy shift at the reform level is necessary to solve chronic problems in Korea's medical reality, such as avoidance of essential and regional medical care and the collapse of the medical delivery system. Nine out of ten citizens agree on increasing medical school quotas (according to a survey by the National Health and Medical Industry Labor Union), and the medical community also agrees that expanding the number of doctors is necessary to enhance essential medical care.

However, simply increasing the number of doctors will only result in the same number flowing into areas like cosmetic medicine, so policies to attract excellent medical personnel to essential medical care must be devised simultaneously. This is why the government has offered the medical community incentives such as normalization of essential medical fees, improvement of resident doctors' treatment, and relief of doctors' burden from medical accidents. In the medical market, where supply creates demand, an increase in the number of doctors inevitably leads to higher medical expenses, so the already depleted health insurance finances must also be considered. This medical school quota expansion policy must not end as a populist move by the government and political circles ahead of the general election or as a feast for some vested interests to divide medical school quotas among themselves.

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