Following last year's increase in medical school enrollment policy, a significant number of residents left hospitals, and the number of specialists who resigned also increased significantly. Resignations among essential medical fields such as neurology, neurosurgery, obstetrics and gynecology, and emergency medicine are set to create a larger medical void.
According to data submitted to the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee by Democratic Party lawmaker Seo Mi-hwa on the 7th, the number of specialists who resigned, including medical school professors at 88 training hospitals nationwide from March to October last year, totaled 1,729. This is double the number of specialists who resigned during the same period in 2023 (865).
Particularly, resignations increased among specialists in essential medical fields. Last year, the number of neurology specialists who resigned was 60, which is four times higher than the previous year (15). The number of resignations in neurosurgery also reached 81, four times higher than the previous year (20). Meanwhile, 57 specialists in obstetrics and gynecology and 106 specialists in pediatrics resigned during the same period, representing increases of 2.4 times and 1.1 times, respectively, compared to the previous year. The number of resignations among emergency medicine specialists also increased 3.6 times from the previous year, with 137 specialists resigning.
Medical students who opposed the increase in medical school enrollment are expected to produce about 3,000 fewer new doctors next year than this year, as they refuse to take the national examination. Medical students must pass both the practical and written examinations of the national exam after graduating from medical school to obtain a medical license. According to the Korea Medical School and Graduate School Student Association (the student association), 2,773 fourth-year students (about 96%) who are scheduled to take the national exam refused to participate.
Residents who left training hospitals in protest of the increase in medical school enrollment mostly did not return and were processed as resignations. As of the 3rd, the attendance rate of residents at 211 training hospitals nationwide is 8.7%. Only about 5% of the total recruitment quota were selected for residents starting their training in March next year. The production of specialists is essentially facing a crisis of being completely halted. Recently, the Korean Medical Association reported that only 566 residents applied to take the specialist qualification exam, resulting in a dramatic decline in the number of new specialists being produced to one-fifth of the usual level.