In response to the government's increase in medical schools, university hospital residents are taking collective action by submitting resignations, and many point out that "Korea is the only country where doctors block the expansion of medical personnel through collective action."
It is explained that other countries around the world are increasing the number of doctors in preparation for an aging population, and there are no cases of striking in protest of the expansion of medical school quotas.
Jeong Hyeong-sun, a professor of health administration at Yonsei University, said on the 18th, "We have conducted research on doctors' strikes in France and other countries, but we have never seen a case where 'increase of doctors' is the reason for the strike."
Professor Chung criticized, "It is wrong to leave a case in which the government surrendered to the collective actions of doctors in the attempts to increase medical schools."
Kim Yoon, a professor at Seoul National University Medical School, also said, "Although each country's system is slightly different, the case of a doctor taking collective action against the government abroad was for reasons such as a wage increase."
He added, "The current collective action of Korean doctors is not just to ask for a wage increase like in overseas cases, but to earn more money on the premise of patient damage caused by a shortage of doctors."
According to the results of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare's interview with the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Medical Association, Japan has estimated regional medical needs and applied a "regional framework" to expand the number of doctors over the past decade, increasing by 43,000, but there has been no opposition from medical groups such as collective action.
The Japanese Medical Association said, "There was no opposition from the association because there was a social consensus on the lack of doctors at the time of the expansion of the number of doctors, and the selection by the local framework also helped persuade doctors."
Germany is also a representative developed country that is increasing the number of medical schools in preparation for an aging population.
In a meeting with Vice Minister of Health Lee Ki-il and a Korean press corps last year, Thomas Steffen, Germany's vice minister of federal health, said, "Germany is planning to increase the number of medical schools by more than 5,000 within the year because the number of medical schools in Germany is not sufficient."
Discussions on expanding the number of medical schools are sluggish in Korea, but developed countries are coming up with drastic expansion plans one after another.
In Germany (8317 million), which has a slightly larger population than Korea, the total number of public medical schools exceeds 9,000, but it has decided to increase it to about 15,000.
The U.K. (6.78 million people), which has a similar population to ours, selected 8,639 people from 42 medical schools in 2020. This will increase to 15,000 by 2031.
In this case, the number of medical school admissions in Germany and the UK will be five times higher than in Korea.
France and Japan are also continuing to increase the number of medical schools in line with the aging trend.
