KMA chief apologizes for post mocking Somali medical school graduates

Lim Hyun-taek, chief of the Korean Medical Association, speaks at a press conference at the association's headquarters in Yongsan District, central Seoul, on Friday. [YONHAP]

The chief of the Korean Medical Association (KMA) apologized on Friday for using an article about Somali medical graduates to suggest that Korea could bring in medics from “third-world countries” in a social media post criticizing the government’s plan to allow foreign-licensed doctors to practice in the country.

Speaking at a press briefing at the KMA’s headquarters on Friday, Lim Hyun-taek said he “wasn’t thinking straight” the previous day when he posted a link on his Facebook account to an article about Somalia’s first batch of medical school graduates in 20 years with a caption that read, “Coming soon.”

The Health Ministry said Thursday it would ask the National Assembly to pass a bill allowing individuals with foreign medical licenses to practice medicine in the country while the state of the four-tier public healthcare alert system is at the highest level, “serious.”

The KMA chief had also suggested on Wednesday that the government could bring in doctors from “third-world countries” after Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo vowed to keep hospitals running by “bringing in chartered flights [with doctors] if all current doctors leave their posts.”

Lim later deleted the Facebook post after he was accused of engaging in racist fear-mongering to attack the government’s plan.

In his explanation at the press briefing, the KMA chief said he had previously posted the article in a group chat with other doctors and added he wanted to “clearly apologize” for uploading the link to his social media account “without thinking it through.”

But Lim made clear he remained opposed to the foreign recruitment plan, arguing that “medical schools in countries like Hungary and Uzbekistan admit people who can pay but don’t have the intellectual capacity [to be doctors],” implying that foreign-trained doctors are not as well-qualified as those who graduated from Korean medical schools.

Choi An-na, who serves as the KMA’s general manager, later said at the briefing that Lim “is not taking issue with foreign medical schools per se, but with Koreans who fail domestic medical school admissions and so decide to go abroad to receive their medical education.”

The KMA chief is one of the fiercest critics of the government’s plan to recruit 2,000 more medical students to preempt a predicted shortfall of 15,000 doctors by the end of the coming decade.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]