Senior doctors at major hospitals in South Korea began submitting their resignations en masse Monday in support of medical interns and residents who have been on a strike for five weeks over the government’s push to sharply increase medical school admissions.
The senior doctors’ action won’t likely cause an immediate worsening of hospital operations in South Korea because they have said they would continue to work even after submitting their resignations. But prospects for an early end to the medical impasse were also dim, as the doctors’ planned action comes after President Yoon Suk Yeol called for talks with doctors while suggesting a possible softening of punitive steps against the striking junior doctors.
About 12,000 interns and medical residents have faced impending suspensions of their licenses over their refusal to end their strikes, which have caused hundreds of cancelled surgeries and other treatments at their hospitals.
They oppose the government’s plan to increase the country’s medical school admission cap by two-thirds, saying schools can’t handle such a steep increase in students and that it would eventually hurt South Korea’s medical services. But officials say more doctors are urgently needed because South Korea has a rapidly aging population and its doctor-to-population ratio is one of the lowest in the developed world.
there’s a bit more minutiae to it. doctors across the board there are concerned that they’re increasing intern Dr headcounts while having no solid plan to support that financially. while at the same time, care to patients in Korea (a place known for having advanced healthcare from elite doctors) is already declining due lack of funding. intern doctors across the world are already underpaid as a unit as a whole, so intern doctors would probably just rather see their pays increase than have headcount increases. and senior doctors would rather just see their interns have better lives. so I wouldn’t say the doctors are the bad guys necessarily either. they have legitimate concerns and government has been wagging them for years now too.
the Korean media has largely portrayed this as greed or that the medical students being salty they studied their asses off to get into med school, but that’s not the largest issue for the medical workers in korea (although it is also a part of it too). the general public would just love available, cheaper healthcare and increasing headcount sounds like the easiest way to do that (which it is), so the tune the media is putting out sounds pretty nice.
this system happens here in the US too. the US medical system does not churn out enough people for required positions, and interns here are getting destroyed as a result of policy. I’m almost positive if the US did something similar, US doctors would react the same way.