Gov’t hikes med school admission quota by 668 per year, ties new doctors to provinces for 10 years

Health Minister Jeong Eun-kyeong announces the medical school admissions quota for 2027 through 2031 at Government Complex Seoul, Tuesday. Yonhap

The Ministry of Health and Welfare on Tuesday announced medical school admissions quotas for 2027 through 2031, raising them by an average of 668 seats per year. The 2027 quota was set at 3,548, up 490 seats, and will increase by 613 in 2028 and 2029, and by 813 in 2030 and 2031, for a total five-year increase of 3,342.

The increased number of students will be obliged to work under the regional doctor system, which would place doctors in designated areas, including underserved regions, to ease shortages outside Seoul. One option offers tuition aid to selected first-year medical students in exchange for a 10-year commitment. Another requires licensed specialists to serve for five to 10 years.

“Under the regional doctor system, all additional seats at existing medical schools will be filled with regional doctors, and the state will take responsibility for supporting them from medical education through training and settlement in local communities,” Jeong said.

Jeong added that the figures were set based on standards including staffing needs for regional and essential care and future shifts in the medical environment, such as advances in artificial intelligence and changes in health policy.

The decision reflects President Lee Jae Myung’s push to expand medical training while tying all additional seats to mandatory practice in areas outside Seoul. The move aims to ease doctor shortages in provincial regions, bolster the case for quota increases and temper resistance from doctors, who protested similar changes during the previous administrations of Yoon Suk Yeol in 2024 and Moon Jae-in in 2020.

The government plans to boost enrollment at 32 medical schools outside Seoul and apply the regional doctor system to all added seats.

According to the National Health Insurance Service, 28 percent of Korea’s roughly 166,000 doctors in 2023 were concentrated in Seoul. The capital had 479 doctors per 100,000 people, more than twice North Gyeongsang Province's 215 and South Chungcheong Province's 230.

Last month, the health ministry decided that starting in the 2027 academic year, any seats added beyond the current 3,058 quota would fall under the regional doctor system.

The size of Korea’s health care workforce — including doctors and nurses — is set through the Health Insurance Policy Deliberation Committee (HIPDC).

After an estimation panel of up to 15 experts, excluding government officials, reviews staffing projections, the HIPDC, chaired by the health minister, sets the overall size based on those projections.

The HIPDC has held seven rounds of talks since last December to flesh out standards for determining how many doctors Korea should train and how to apply them.

Expanding medical school admissions has long been a flashpoint between the government and doctors.

In 2020, the Moon Jae-in administration planned to add 400 medical school seats a year for a decade, but dropped the plan after pushback from doctors.

In February 2024, the Yoon administration announced plans to raise the annual medical school admissions quota by 2,000 seats — from 3,058 to 5,058 — the first increase in 27 years, citing the need to expand the health care workforce and strengthen regional care.

Doctors pushed back, calling the plan unilaterally imposed and lacking a solid scientific basis. More than 8,800 medical residents nationwide resigned that month in protest, and roughly 7,600 medical students launched a coordinated leave-of-absence campaign.

The Yoon administration responded by ordering residents to return to work and maintain medical services, and telling teaching hospitals not to accept collective resignation letters.

Yoon was impeached in April last year over his December 2024 declaration of martial law. Later that month, the 2026 medical school quota was reverted to 3,058. The Lee Jae Myung administration, inaugurated in June 2025, has largely maintained the push to expand medical training.

During his presidential campaign, Lee pledged to establish regional and public medical schools to ease regional health care gaps.

Soon after the government’s announcement, doctors raised their voices.

“We cannot help but express deep regret and concern over the government’s decision, which lacks rational judgment and is fixated on numbers only,” the Korean Medical Association (KMA) said in a statement Tuesday.

The KMA warned that a sudden increase could weaken medical education, urging the government to assess whether schools can handle the added students.

The association also called for a medical education consultative body to hear voices from the field. It urged parallel reforms, including exemptions from criminal liability for medical accidents, to bolster essential care.

“Expanding the numbers without such essential reforms is deceiving the public,” the KMA said.