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Medical campuses virtually empty despite deans' call for students to return

Published: 04 Mar. 2025, 14:50

LEE SOO-JUNG
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A lecture hall at a medical school in Daejeon is seen empty as students continue their boycott on March 4. [YONHAP]

Medical school deans nationwide said Tuesday that they urged boycotting students to return to their campuses in a long letter sent out a day earlier, saying prolonged protest would cause “numerous side effects” to society and the medical community.

The Korea Association of Medical Colleges (KAMC), representing 40 deans from 40 medical schools across the country, sent a four-page letter to medical students on Monday as the spring semester for the 2025 academic year begins in early March.

In the letter, the deans recalled the yearlong protest that led to students walking out of their campuses starting from last year’s spring semester. They said that a “halt in producing doctors for a year — which has already happened — would result in numerous side effects within the medical community.”

Medical students started as a move to resist government-led admission quota increases. Most medical students in their senior year who were on track to receive medical licenses did not take qualification exams. Last year, only 269 doctors obtained their licenses, while the country had produced around 3,000 doctors yearly.

“Our society and medical students would suffer grave consequences when the protest repeats for another year,” the deans wrote. “Actions to raise awareness on misleading policies rather crippled the medical system, which medical personnel should have protected.”

The deans said they could no longer sit back and wait for the Korean Medical Association (KMA) — the nation’s largest doctors’ group — to resolve the impasse. They noted that the KMA does not fairly represent medical students who do not hold medical licenses because the KMA's membership is given to those with medical licenses such as junior and senior doctors and private practitioners.

On Feb. 24, the deans requested Education Minister Lee Ju-ho to adjust the enrollment quota for the 2026 academic year back to 3,058 seats, a previous admission size before a 1,509-seat hike in the 2025 academic year.

They also demanded that the government accept the calculation from an independent body to determine an appropriate size for the enrollment quota. The body is expected to be established when the National Assembly passes an amendment to the Framework Act on Health and Medical Services.

Medical staff walk inside Seoul National University Hospital in Jongno District, central Seoul on Feb. 25. [YONHAP]

“Students should make wise decisions and return to their classrooms in the spring semester of the 2025 academic year,” the deans wrote.

The deans said normalized education would “minimize damages to students” and empower their protesting stance against the government. They added that policymakers and academic associations should manage the negotiation with the government.

The message appears to be encouraging students to focus on their studies rather than continuing their resistance against the government.

Other medical associations are also aligned with the KAMC’s message and requests.

On Tuesday, another association responsible for medical education in Korea said it sent a public notice to Education Minister Lee to reverse the admission quota to a level as it was before the hike. It also requested the government to present specific means to maintain education quality and support for medical schools which will educate double the number of students this year.

The association said its demands are a “desperate call and last opportunity” to normalize medical education and to bring students back to the classroom. The group said the country would become “impossible to produce doctors for two consecutive years if students would not return to classrooms until the end of spring semester.”

Despite the faculty’s calls, medical schools’ classrooms were reported to be largely empty on Tuesday, according to Yonhap New Agency.

Hanyang University’s School of Medicine in eastern Seoul recorded low student attendance. A requisite course for first-year students had only 10 students present and some 150 empty seats. Another course for sophomore students had no participating students.

The news agency reported that medical schools at Yonsei University in western Seoul and Seoul National University in southern Seoul also recorded low student attendance in lectures with few students seen on campus.

BY LEE SOO-JUNG [[email protected]]