President of the Korean Medical Association: ”September recruitment of medical residents will bring Korean medical care to the abyss”

The South Korean government's request to training hospitals to determine by the 15th whether or not resident physicians can resign has sparked backlash from medical school professors and medical associations.
Lim Hyun-Tae, president of the Korean Medical Association, said at a press conference held at the Medical Association Hall that afternoon that the government had implemented the "Autumn Turn" (September major).
"The very act of choosing a new doctor recruitment program will plunge Korean medical care into an abyss from which it will never recover," he said, strongly criticizing the recruitment of medical residents for the second half of September this year.
Currently, the government has set the following rules for resigning medical residents who are seeking medical residents in the second half of the year:
The government is encouraging residents to return by applying a special exception to the rule that prohibits them from returning to the same year and subject within one year, but the medical community sees this government policy as dividing residents.
Chairman Hayashi said, "Instead of using all sorts of tricks to select the fall turn, the government should stop recruiting for the fall turn even now and fully accept the wishes of the medical residents and students.
"Please keep in mind that this is the way to resolve this situation," he said. Chairman Lim said that when the resigned medical residents applied for the second half of the year's recruitment, the government
They also criticized the government for not placing any restrictions on the 'area'. Prior to this, the heads of training hospitals across the country had announced that resigning resident doctors would be re-appointed in the second half of the year.
Currently, hospital directors in the region are concerned that resident doctors who are training in their region may move to large hospitals in the metropolitan area after resigning.
Chairman Hayashi said, "The reason the government is not accepting regional restrictions is that only the 'Big 5' hospitals (in the capital region) need to fill the resident doctor quota, and they don't care about the rest, whether it's regional medical care or medical care that helps people.
"The government is completely destroying local medical care and undermining the nation's medical infrastructure," he said. Currently, at the request of the government, each training hospital is accepting applications for resident doctors to resign or return to work until this day.
The government plans to confirm their intentions and determine the number of vacancies. Based on this, it plans to decide the number of resident recruitments for the second half of the year.
Prior to this, training hospitals across the country sent messages to resident doctors last week.
If he did not respond by that date, they would assume that he had no intention of returning to work and would be forced to resign.