'Unpopular' medical departments face shortage of doctors

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By Lee Hae-rin

Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH), one of Korea's most advanced medical centers, is seeing a doctor shortage in 'unpopular' medical departments like surgery and emergency medicine, according to data released Wednesday.

Doctors are found to prefer medical specialties such as plastic surgery and dermatology which offer better pay and working conditions.

According to SNUH's recruitment statistics for medical specialists by departments between 2021 and May 2023, submitted to Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) Rep. Kang Min-jung, the hospital's surgery department went through 11 recruitment drives to hire 47 specialists last year.

The surgery department was the only medical department at SNUH that went through more than 10 recruitment drives to hire enough specialists.

In 2021, the same department hired only 24 surgeons in four recruitment drives, although it initially sought to hire 34.

The hospital's other medical departments known to be relatively unpopular have also suffered staffing shortages.

Internal medicine ranked second after the surgery department. After nine recruitment drives, it hired 72 of the total 75 applicants, after setting a goal of 82 new hires.

Seoul National University Bundang Hospital (SNUBH), SNUH's outer-Seoul branch in southern Gyeonggi Province, went through 20 recruitment drives last year in an attempt to hire 52 internal medicine specialists, but only 41 applied, 39 of which were hired by the department.

SNUH's emergency medicine department, which planned to hire 24 specialists, hired only 10 doctors after eight recruitment drives.

The thoracic surgery, gynecology and pediatrics departments at SNUH each went through five recruitment drives to find the required number of medical specialists.

In contrast, the plastic surgery department hired the number of doctors required last year in only one recruitment drive, while the dermatology and orthopedics departments took two recruitment drives to hire enough medical specialists.