By Yi Whan-woo
The government shelved its plan to abolish a medical internship training program Monday in the face of protests from medical students.
The students campaigned against the plan, claiming it would limit their chances in choosing appropriate disciplines.
“We originally planned to announce a revised law today but decided to delay it indefinitely for further review,” the Ministry of Health and Welfare said in a statement.
Under the revised law, the ministry planned to terminate internships from 2014.
As for the reason behind the delay, a ministry official said: “The reaction from the students was unexpected, and so we need more time to listen to other opinions.”
The government sought to scrap the internship program as it saw little merit in maintaining the system, with trainees learning little from the program requiring them to do chores in most cases.
Medical students claim the government’s plan to scrap the program will limit their opportunities to choose their appropriate fields.
The ministry consulted in advance with the Korean Academy of Medical Services, an academic society comprised of doctors, to minimize any negative impact.
Students claim such a decision-making process was inconsiderate as they were excluded.
“We, the students, were excluded from the beginning in taking part in the planned revisions,” said Ahn Chi-hyun, a third-year undergraduate at Seoul National University.
Medical students from 12 schools across the country have joined a campaign to petition against the plan. The number of participants is expected to increase when the new semester starts in March.
The current program, in practice for over 40 years, requires a one-year internship and four-year residency. The ministry instead seeks to extend the residency training program to five years.
A number of students say the internship program allows them to choose an appropriate medical field by building experience in various departments through rotations. But a ministry official said such a procedure is inefficient.
“While the purpose was laudable, interns are assigned odd jobs, as they stay only about a month in each department,” said Jung Woo-jin, deputy director of the ministry’s division of health care resources policy.
Jung said the five-year residency program will be able to overcome such defects as it is oriented toward hands-on background experience.
Students, however, say the ministry’s move will harm medical students at provincial universities, claiming those students will have fewer opportunities to work at large-size hospitals.
“Even if we had disadvantages in terms of our school name, the chance to work as medical residents in a hospital in Seoul were open with the internship programs as we could form networks with doctors there,” a senior at a school in South Gyeongsang Province said.
A Ministry of Health and Welfare official said this was an additional reason to abolish internships.
“A student should be judged by academic grades or other criterion that can fairly evaluate him or her, and such student’s statements are unacceptable,” he said.