SEOUL, Only 10 percent of intern doctors have enrolled for internship training for the first half of the year, the health ministry said Tuesday, amid the protracted walkout by junior doctors in protest of the South Korean government’s plan to increase medical school admissions.
According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, about 10 percent of the 2,687 new doctors who were supposed to start internships this year had registered with the Council for Graduate Medical Training as of the previous day. The rest refused to accept internships.
Those who fail to register for internships by Tuesday will not be able to train as interns in the first half of this year. Instead, they have to start training in the second half of September or next March.
The ministry said it has informed the students of this schedule and urged them to return and register.
It has also emphasized that those who fail to register and return later will not be permitted to train in the first half of the year.
In South Korea, completing a
one-year internship and a four-year residency in a specialty are necessary steps to become a medical specialist.
However, trainee doctors, including interns, have remained steadfast in their stance.
About 12,000 interns and resident doctors have been on strike in the form of mass resignations since Feb. 20 to protest against the proposed increase in the number of medical students.
The weekslong walkout has led to the cancellation or postponement of surgeries and other public health services at major hospitals.
Medical professors, who have filled the vacancies of junior doctors at major hospitals for weeks, also submitted resignations and began cutting their working hours Monday to cope with growing fatigue.
Source: Yonhap News Agency