Korean Intern Resident Association (KIRA) will push to leave the Korean Medical Association Organization's umbrella and convert into an independent incorporated association.
KIRA said it held a regular general assembly of delegates at the medical association hall in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, on the 28th and approved agenda items to establish an incorporated association and to set up the "Young Doctors Policy Institute."
KIRA is currently operating as a group under the medical association. If it converts to a nonprofit incorporated association with approval from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, it can act as an independent legal entity in areas such as securing national research projects and concluding inter-agency contracts.
In the process of making health care policy decisions, it will also be able to present the residents' position separately from the medical association. This is seen as a move to build a policy response system different from the medical association, which is centered on private practitioners.
On the same day, KIRA President Han Seongjon said in opening remarks that the group "has focused on resolving pressing issues such as securing continuity of training and revising the Residents Act," and added, "In the short term, we will work on improving residents' treatment and normalizing the training environment, and in the long term, we will present the direction of the future health care system."
Through the Young Doctors Policy Institute, whose establishment was approved that day, KIRA plans to pursue as its first research project a study to overhaul the training curriculum to guarantee "protected training hours."