An online community called "Medistaff", which only doctors and medical students can join, continues to witness online harassment and verbal abuse against returning medical students and residents. There are concerns that a platform for communication among young doctors has transformed into a space for collective lynching.
According to reports on the 20th, personal information including names and school IDs of about 70 individuals who returned to Chungnam National University Medical School has been leaked on Medistaff, accompanied by sexual harassment and mocking verbal abuse. In particular, excessive remarks directed at female students have flooded in, causing some to skip classes and seek psychiatric treatment.
They referred to returning students as "Gyeomgyeol" (a derogatory term for residents and medical students who do not participate in collective actions) and posted indiscriminately defamatory and sexually harassing messages such as, "Chungnam 24 Gyeomgyeol are super pretty, I feel like eating xx" "Is that x lewd?" "That xx's mother is from that xx family. Lucky to have sent them to medical school" "I'll reveal medical students from Chungnam and other schools' xx stories soon."
According to school regulations, students at Chungnam National University Medical School are expelled if they accumulate two academic warnings. Students from the 24th cohort, who had already received a warning last year for refusing to attend classes, were in a position that could lead to expulsion with another warning. Expulsion is a measure taken by the school to cancel a student's enrollment, making it impossible to return without permission for re-enrollment. Thus, all 70 students who chose to return to school are now exposed to online lynching by seniors.
Chungnam National University Medical School has submitted the results of its investigation into this incident to the Ministry of Education and is providing counseling for the affected students. The Ministry of Education has referred the matter to the Korean National Police Agency for investigation, and the affected students have filed complaints against the authors of the posts on Medistaff. The Daejeon Yuseong Police Station, which is investigating the case of one victim, has completed the testimony of the complainants and is tracking the IP addresses of the authors of the posts to identify suspects.
The collective online lynching behavior on Medistaff is not a recent occurrence. Following last year's conflicts regarding the increase of medical school admissions, medical students and residents collectively went on leave and resigned, leading to continuous leaks of personal information and derogatory posts targeting those who returned to school or training hospitals.
The closure of Medistaff has contributed to its transformation into a space for "collective harassment" of medical students and doctors. Access to Medistaff is only available through a mobile app verified by a member's phone, and screen captures are not possible. Moreover, a unique membership number is used as a watermark in the background of the screen to prevent external leaks of posts.
The Ministry of Education has requested the Korea Communications Standards Commission to close Medistaff twice this year. In March, it demanded an emergency closure of Medistaff along with the Ministry of Health and Welfare as well as the deletion of malicious posts and sanctions against the operator. However, the Korea Communications Standards Commission concluded last month on the grounds of enhancing self-regulation instead of closure. Although Medistaff operators made some formal changes to the bulletin structure, no substantial improvements were made.
The Ministry of Education has also requested an investigation by the police into the recent leak of personal information of students who returned to classes at Jeju National University Medical School and has re-requested an emergency review for the closure of Medistaff by the Korea Communications Standards Commission. The Korea Communications Standards Commission is currently reviewing this request.