The National Council of Medical School Professors (Council of Medical School Professors) said about the government's plan to increase medical school seats that "the quality of medical education must be verified based on actual operational feasibility, not merely meeting statutory standards." It said the point is to determine whether real instruction is possible.
The Council of Medical School Professors said this at a press briefing held on the 13th at Korea University in Seoul. The council said, "The statutory standards presented by the government are only the minimum conditions for possibility."
The Ministry of Health and Welfare convened the Health and Medical Policy Deliberation Committee on the 10th and decided to expand the annual average enrollment by 668 students at 32 medical schools outside Seoul from the 2027 to the 2031 academic years. One of the five criteria for the scale of physician training was securing the quality of medical education.
The Council of Medical School Professors said, "Securing educational quality, one of the principles for deliberating physician training at the committee, is determined by who the actual learners are and the teaching competency of instructors," adding, "It must be examined whether there are plans for lectures and practicums, and whether capacity is secured for patient-contact education and training intake."
It added, "If these conditions are not verified, it is hard to use the phrase securing educational quality as a policy basis," and said, "If enrollment is a long-term variable and securing educational quality is a deliberation principle, yearly scenario verification materials must be disclosed."
The Council of Medical School Professors said, "We do not deny the discussion on enrollment itself," and added, "If educational quality is the policy basis, that quality must be verified in a measurable way, and the government must disclose the (projection) raw data."