KMA Next President: "Cannot Increase Medical Students at All... Should Rather Decrease"

The government softened its initial announcement to increase medical school admissions by 2,000 students for the 2025 academic year, allowing each university to reduce the increase by up to half. In response, Im Hyun-taek, the next president of the Korea Medical Association (KMA), sharply criticized this as "a kind of Josam-mosa (a trick of changing the order but not the outcome)."

Photo by Heo Younghan, Asia Economy

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On the 22nd, in an interview with SBS Radio's 'Kim Tae-hyun's Political Show,' Im Hyun-taek, whose term begins next month, drew a clear line, stating, "The official stance of residents, professors, and the KMA is that not a single additional doctor should be added." Im emphasized, "(The increase in medical school admissions) is not a matter of compromise or flexibility; it is an unmovable principle," adding, "Personally, I believe the number of medical school admissions should be reduced."

Regarding the question about the "serious harm to patients," Im responded, "This issue should not have been dragged out for so long," and criticized, "The government must clearly answer whether it was necessary to push forward with the medical school increase despite causing such great harm to the public." He also added, "As someone belonging to the medical profession, I feel sorry to the patients."

Im also pointed out the essential medical policy package. He said, "Equally important as the medical school increase issue is the complete abolition of the essential medical policy package, which is a serious medical destruction policy, yet there has been not a single word about it," emphasizing, "After seeing the government's proposal, will residents, medical students, and professors really accept it?"

Earlier, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo announced that next year's medical school increase of 2,000 students would be autonomously decided by each university within a range of 50% to 100%. Accordingly, it is expected that next year's medical school enrollment will increase by between 1,000 and 2,000 students. However, the medical community maintains that the only solution to the situation is a "re-discussion of the medical school increase from the ground up," based on scientific evidence to calculate an appropriate scale of increase.

Previously, after being elected as the next KMA president last month, Im emphasized, "In our country, medical accessibility is already good enough that there are countless clinics and hospitals run by specialists on almost every neighborhood street corner," and added, "Rather, the number of medical school admissions should be reduced by 500 to 1,000."

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