Medical schools to add around 1,550 admissions seats, less than gov't plan

Social Affairs

Published: 01 May. 2024, 19:10 Updated: 01 May. 2024, 19:26

Medical schools to add around 1,550 admissions seats, less than gov't plan

A medical professional on an escalator inside a general hospital in Seoul on Wednesday. [NEWS1]

Korean medical schools will add around 1,550 seats to their incoming class for the 2025 academic year, falling short of the government’s original plan to increase admissions by 2,000 seats.

All medical schools that received newly allocated seats in March have confirmed their admissions quotas as of Wednesday.

National medical schools outside the greater Seoul area halved their portion of newly allocated seats assigned by the Education Ministry in March. Private medical schools are expected to increase their intake as much as possible.

With the exception of Chonnam National University, all eight state-run medical schools decided to add as few new seats as possible. On April 19, the government granted partial autonomy to medical schools that received expanded quotas to adjust their assigned quota by 50 to 100 percent.

Although public medical schools outside Seoul were initially given 806 admission seats as focal subjects of the quota hike, they are expected to install 405 new seats instead, if Chonnam National University decides to also halve its assigned quota.

Chungbuk National University, which was allotted an incoming class of 200 students, will only admit 125 students after scaling down their added admissions seats from 151 to 76. Kyungpook National University and Chungnam National University also cut their expanded quotas in half, from 90 to 45.

Kangwon National University decided to enroll 91 students, only adding 42 new slots despite 83 seats allocated by the government. Gyeongsang National University slashed their newly allocated quota from 124 to 62. When adding the new seats to the current class size of 76, the school will admit a total of 138 students.

Although the ministry ordered Jeonbuk National University to admit 200 students by adding 58 new seats, the school decided to welcome 171 new students, with an increase of only 29 seats.

The admissions class at Pusan National University shrank from the intended 200 seats to 163 after reducing the number of new seats from 75 to 38. Jeju National University, which decided to halve the ministry’s allotted 60 new seats to 30, will recruit a total of 70 students.

Chonnam National University's adjusted admissions quota has not yet been shared with educational authorities.

Privately-run medical schools intend to recruit incoming classes either per the ministry’s allocation or by reducing only a few slots from the assigned seats.

Of 23 private medical schools subject to adding admissions seats, Sungkyunkwan University, Ajou University, Yeungnam University, University of Ulsan and Dankook University’s Cheonan Campus will downsize their assigned portions.

Some 15 other schools are reported to recruit incoming students according to the government’s seat assignment. Of the remaining three, two said they would not publicly disclose their admissions size at this time.

The School of Medicine under CHA University has a later deadline to declare their incoming class size, as it trains graduates, rather than undergrads, to become doctors.

The Korean Council for University Education will be approving the admission plans submitted by each university until the end of May, an official from the Education Ministry said. The decision will be irrevocable.

A poster condemning the government's plan to add admissions seats in medical school is attached on the wall inside the headquarters of the Korean Medical Association in Yongsan District, central Seoul on Wednesday. [NEWS1]

The new leadership of the country’s largest doctors’ group Korean Medical Association (KMA) will commence on Wednesday, with president-elect Lim Hyun-taek’s term beginning on the same day.

Lim, who has taken a hard-line stance toward the government, promised to “resolve” the standoff between the government and doctors on Wednesday so that “patients’ concerns could be alleviated.”

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Lim wrote that his efforts are also for “junior doctors who walked out of hospitals after losing hope and the pride of saving lives, medical students boycotting classes to protest against injustice, medical professors who dedicated their lives to nurturing students and taking care of patients and private practitioners and state-hired doctors who are supporting [junior doctors’] collective actions."

However, rapprochement between doctors and the government remains unclear as Lim’s previous remarks and attitudes appear to forecast hard-line actions.

Lim has maintained that the medical community will not engage in talks until the government scraps its recruitment expansion plan entirely.

During a Sunday's KMA general assembly, Lim said he will remain vocal about misleading policies and resist policies that destroy medical services with his “do-or-die” spirit.

On the sidelines, the KMA additionally hired two directors who were former attorneys. The action appears to safeguard doctors from prosecution as it coincided with when the government reviewed whether doctors' actions to shutdown their services were illegitimate.

Although it is unclear whether direct talks between the government and doctors will happen, Lim plans to “form a consultative body with junior doctors, medical professors and medical students.”

The KMA said that it is open for “one-on-one” dialogue with the government and is “reviewing various potential scenarios” and “devising solutions.”

An inaugural ceremony for Lim will take place Thursday as the first day of his term falls on Labor Day.

Meanwhile, the country is seeing a gradual return of fellow doctors to hospitals. Fellow doctors are senior doctors with board specialties but usually younger than medical professors.

According to the Health Ministry, a total of 61.7 percent of fellow doctors had signed employment contracts at 100 major hospitals across the nation as of Tuesday. Five of the largest, most comprehensive hospitals inside the capital, saw labor contract rates rise to 65.9 percent.

Fellow doctors were part of the collective action since late February and protested the government’s plan to hike admission quotas in medical schools. The average nationwide contract rate was slightly above 33 percent at the beginning of the protests in February and rose to some 60 percent over two months.

The medical community considers the fellow doctors' return as a hopeful indicator to solving the current understaffing at hospitals.

BY LEE SOO-JUNG [lee.soojung1@joongang.co.kr]