South Korea Resident Doctors Intake Plunges Amid Rift With Yoon
- Yoon government wants to raise medical school enrollments
- Korea doctors ranked among the best paid in OECD countries
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South Korea’s intake of resident doctors plunged to the lowest in years, exacerbating a shortage of medical practitioners that’s put the government at odds with doctors and made worse by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s now-aborted martial law.
The government received 314 applications by the Dec. 9 deadline for 3,594 open positions for resident doctors for the first half of next year, Yonhap News reported Tuesday, citing the Ministry of Health and Welfare. That translates to a 8.7% takeup rate, compared to 82.1% in the first half of 2023 and 83.2% in the first half of 2022, the data showed.