President’s Office: “We can educate 7,500 first-year medical students next year”… Doctors: “No promotion or practice possible for 6 years” | Dong-A Ilbo

Leave of Absence – Situation where freshmen take classes together
President’s Office claims, “You just have to prepare”

The Newsis Presidential Office stated that there will be no major problems even if a total of 7,500 students, including 4,500 new medical school students added next year and 3,000 students who enrolled this year but took a leave of absence, take classes at the same time. In response to this, there is a rebuttal from the medical community, saying, “As the number of people who increase by 2.5 times will take classes together for 6 years, normal education will be impossible and a large number of incompetent doctors will be produced.”

A high-ranking official from the President’s Office met with reporters on the 17th and said, “For the first year of pre-med next year, about 7,500 students, including this year’s freshmen and next year’s freshmen, will take classes.” “Considering the characteristics of first-year education, we believe that education is possible if we prepare by dividing the students into different classes,” he said.

The government has been adhering to the policy of ‘no leave of absence or repeating grades’ after medical school students refused classes in February of this year. The reason was that if leave of absence or repeating a grade is allowed, about 7,500 medical students, 2.5 times the current medical school capacity, will take classes at the same time next year, and the production of new doctors will stop. However, as the refusal to attend classes became prolonged and it became impossible to proceed with the one-year course in the remaining period, the Ministry of Education changed its policy to allow conditional leave of absence on the 6th of this month, saying, “We will allow leave of absence if you promise to return for the first semester next year.”

The problem is that for next year’s first-year pre-med students, the rapidly increasing number of students will have to continue to advance and take classes together. Kang Hee-kyung, professor of medicine and hospital at Seoul National University and chair of the emergency response committee, said, “Pre-med is also a problem, but if you enter a main department that focuses on practical training after two years, education becomes practically impossible. “This situation continues for 10 years, through pre-med, main department, and even to residency (intern, resident),” he said, refutating the remarks of an official from the President’s Office.

Regarding the scale of the increase, a senior official in the Presidential Office also said, “In fact, there are a shortage of 20,000 doctors by 2035 and we need to increase the number of doctors by 4,000, but we decided that 2,000 is the safest and most achievable number without putting a burden on education.” . Regarding the Korean Medical Association’s claim that there is no shortage of doctors, it dismissed the claim, saying, “You are making the (unrealistic) assumption that doctors provide medicine without dying.”

Reporter Choi Yena [email protected]

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