In 2024, education for medical students and training for specialists came to a standstill due to conflicts between the medical community and the government. The medical community agrees that normalizing medical education is an urgent task for 2025.
According to the Ministry of Education, applications for regular admissions for the 2025 academic year will be accepted from Dec. 31 to Jan. 3. After completing the regular admissions process, the requests to nullify the expansion of medical school enrollment and adjust the 2025 academic year quotas, which the medical community has consistently demanded, will not be accepted.
Thus, the determination of medical school quotas for the 2026 academic year and the additional recruitment of residents in February will be a crucial turning point for resolving conflicts and normalizing medical services.
In February of last year, following the government's policy announcement to increase medical school enrollment, medical students responded with a collective leave of absence, refusing classes en masse. According to data submitted to the National Assembly's Education Committee by Democratic Party lawmaker Jin Seon-mi, of the 19,374 enrolled students across 40 medical schools in the second semester of the 2024 academic year, only 548 attended classes, resulting in an attendance rate of 2.8%.
There are significant concerns within the education community. If the conflicts continue and the refusal of classes and mass leaves of absence by medical students persist, plans for producing medical personnel will face critical setbacks, and when classes resume, the inability to accommodate the increased number of students may lead to a decline in educational quality.
On the 9th and 10th, the written part of the national medical examination will take place, but it is expected that approximately 3,000 fewer new physicians will be produced next year due to medical students rejecting the examination in response to the increased enrollment. Medical students must graduate from medical school and pass both the practical and written parts of the national examination to obtain a medical license. Each medical school submits a list of expected graduates to the Korea Health Personnel Education Commission and those intending to take the exam must agree to provide personal information. However, according to the Korea Medical College and Medical Graduate School Student Association, about 2,773 students (about 96%) in their fourth year have refused to participate. This means they will not register for the national examination.
Residents who left their training hospitals in protest against the increase in medical school enrollment mostly have not returned and have been processed for resignation. As of December 2024, the attendance rate for residents across 211 training hospitals nationwide is 8.7%. Only about 5% of the total recruitment quota was secured for residents starting training in March next year. Although the first written exam for the specialist qualification is scheduled for Feb. 14, the production of specialists is also facing a significant reduction. If this continues, the gaps in the medical personnel system, including medical education and residency training, will only widen.
Even if medical students return and classes resume, the crucial issue will be how to effectively teach the increased number of students, including new and current students. Starting this year, over 3,000 first-year students who refused classes, along with 4,567 new students for 2025, could potentially result in about 7,500 students attending classes simultaneously.
The emergency response committee of the Korean Medical Association noted, "After recruiting new students for the 2025 academic year, when current students return, there may be cases where 40 students have to share the same space that 10 students used to study and practice," and questioned what preparations the medical school is making regarding the safety of students and staff.
Within the medical community, there are ongoing calls to find solutions in the admissions for the 2026 academic year, and the medical school quotas must be confirmed by February. Even if discussions resume, the significant differences in positions between both sides suggest the process will be challenging. Opinions within the medical community are also divided. Some argue to 'not recruit new students for 2026' to prevent the collapse of medical education, while others suggest to 'freeze the enrollment at 2024 levels for 2026 and discuss increasing it from the following year,' and some propose to 'reduce enrollment compared to previous quotas.' The government intends to discuss the quotas for 2026 through the Personnel Supply Estimation Committee, a professional body aimed at scientifically and professionally estimating the appropriate scale of medical personnel considering mid- to long-term medical demand.