Doctors must come to the negotiating table

The government has taken a step back from its adherence to increasing the medical school enrollment quota by 2,000 from next year. But the standoff with doctors shows no sign of easing. They want to start all over again without providing any alternative solutions to the dire shortages of doctors. Whether they have the mind to agree to any form of increase is uncertain.

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo last week accepted the proposal by national university presidents and agreed to leave it up to universities to admit students within 50 to 100 percent of their quota as an increase. Upon universities’ decision, enrollment increases could be cut to 1,000, or half of the original plan.

But doctors responded with coldness. The emergency committee of the Korean Medical Association admitted that the government had “tried” to solve the matter, but it said it could not accept the new proposal, as it could not be a “fundamental” solution. The doctors’ group also made it clear that it wouldn’t join the presidential special commission on medical reform. The association of medical school professors also said the government only proved it did not have any grounds for its argument on the need to add 2,000 medical students a year by referring the quota increase decision to each university. The medical professors’ association vowed to hand in resignations as planned from next week if the government doesn’t take a clearer action.

Their recalcitrance only raises the suspicion that their goal is entirely to upend the plan to increase medical students. If the plan is pushed back by a year, the government will lose impetus to push it in the following year.

In 2020, doctors forced the government to withdraw its plan to increase the quota by 400. At that time, doctors and the government agreed to discuss the matter through a consultative body, but didn’t make any progress until the end of the Moon Jae-in administration in the face of strong opposition to any quota change. This time, doctors attacked the government for the sudden stretch to 2,000. But since the government has eased up on the figure, doctors must come to the negotiating table, including the presidential commission to be established later this week.

The increase beyond next year could be further fine tuned through negotiation. Doctors can even discuss rescheduling the time of the increase. Yet, they are threatening the government that it is running out of time, referring to the deadline for collective suspension notification to boycotting medical students and a mass resignation by professors. The medical system could collapse if the golden time for reform is wasted. Patients could die as a result. Doctors must remember the liability will fall on them.