Lately, the government announced a new policy, which is establishing a public medical college and increasing the fixed number of rendered years medical college graduates to ten years. Public medical college students can get an all-expenses-paid scholarship and should work in their region for ten years obligatorily. According to this, the medical students held opposition rallies about it, and some doctors even went on strike. There are conflicting opinions of new policy between the government and the Korean Medical Association.

▲ Opposition Rally Against a New Policy

First of all, the government announced the policy because of the lack of the health care provider and to help to expand the regional medical service gap. It claimed that the number of doctors in the Republic of Korea is about 100,000, which is very lacking compared to the OECD average of 160,000. Also, the government pointed out the number of local doctors is significantly lower than that of Seoul.

▲ The number of Doctors by Region

Next, the Korean Medical Association opposed the policy and requested improvement of labor conditions and repeating discussion. It said that the number of doctors is sufficient, and the policy is a lack of fundamental solutions. Also, it said that the deprivation of a doctor's license when changing major violates freedom of choice of occupation. It emphasized that population decline according to the low birth rate and the rate of increase of doctors should be considered. It was concerned that the higher number of doctors would lead to poor quality of health care and increased behavior such as over-medicine. Doctors said they would take collective action until their demands were met.

▲ Doctors Opposed the Policy and Request Improvement

To sum up, there are two conflicting opinions between the government and the Korea Medical Association. Health care has a great impact on people's health, so the government and doctors need to make a good compromise.

Sep. 19th, 2020

By Son Chae Yun