Bahk Eun-ji has been with The Korea Times since 2012, building a career across multiple desks. She began at the Business Desk, where she conducted in-depth interviews with key figures in Korea's corporate world. Later, she moved to the Politics & City Desk, focusing on education policy and social affairs. She later served as team leader of the digital content team, leading curation efforts on the newspaper’s homepage and reshaping print stories for social media audiences to enhance digital reach. Now back on the Politics Desk, she covers the National Assembly and the Ministry of National Defense, with a renewed focus on political developments.
Trainee doctors return to work Tuesday
A man walks past the building of the Korea Health Personnel Licensing Examination Institute in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, Sunday. Yonhap
By Bahk Eun-ji
By Bahk Eun-ji
Trainee doctors decided to return to work today, ending their two-week-long strike, the Korean Interns and Residents Association (KIRA) said Monday.
The decision to strike came as the KIRA and a taskforce representing medical students opposed an agreement made between the Korean Medical Association (KMA) and the government over controversial medical reform plans.
The KIRA, representing interns and residents at general hospitals, said its members will return to hospitals starting 7 a.m. Tuesday.
The members of the junior doctors' group, however, said they will launch an escalated collective action if the government does not come up with further measures within two weeks to support the medical students who decided not to apply for the state medical licensing exam which will also be held today.
The conflict between medical students and the government escalated as the students decided to push ahead with their boycott of the state-run licensing exam.
After the government backed down from implementing the medical reform plans, including those to increase the quota for medical students, establish a new public medical school and extend medical insurance coverage to traditional Korean medicine treatments, the trainee doctors were expected to get back to work starting Monday. But the KIRA and the taskforce representing medical students eventually refused to return to work and the students planned to boycott the licensing test slated for Tuesday.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare, however, stressed that it will not be further postponing the test schedule, which was already rescheduled once due to the junior doctors' collective action.
According to the ministry, 14 percent or 446 of 3,172 people signed up for the 2021 Korean Medical License Examination.
“We have repeatedly informed medical students that it will be difficult for them to take the test this year if they boycott the rescheduled test which will take place on Tuesday. The test will be carried out and as for now, we are not considering another postponement,” Son Young-rae, a senior official of the health ministry, said during a regular press briefing at the government complex in Sejong.
“This is a matter of laws and principles, and that the principle is applied to all national examinations not only for the doctors but also for numerous professional qualifications.”
Previously, the government postponed the state-run medical licensing exam by one week, from Sept. 1 to 8, in order to “minimize the damages against the medical students.”
The medical licensing exam is divided into a clinical exam and a separate written test scheduled for January. The students' refusal to take the clinical exam has led to immediate concern over a shortage of licensed young doctors. The first exams scheduled for Sept. 1 to 18 were pushed back to Sept. 8 to 25.
The health ministry began to come up with alternatives as medical students have refused to take the exam again. “Because 3,000 people are not suddenly vacant a year, it is not a big problem enough to disrupt the supply and demand of medical personnel in the community,” a ministry official said.
“We are looking for alternative and support measures for rural health centers, military doctors and public health doctors.”