Dark future from the medical school frenzy

A society without diversity will be dark.

Yeom Jae-ho

The author, a former president of Korea University, is the president of Taejae University. The fervor over going to a medical school continues in Korea. One out of four elementary school students wants to enter a medical school. Cram schools are packed with elementary and middle school students who dream of becoming doctors. Local universities report a critical lack of applicants, but medical schools are exceptions. 33 times the quota applied for a medical school in Busan while 29 times the quota applied for another school in Daegu. The number of applicants increased at least threefold over the past three years.

In the age of digital revolution, Big Data, AI, chips and computer science are expected to lead our future, but medical schools in areas outside Seoul are more popular than engineering schools at the SKY league — Seoul National University (SNU), Korea University and Yonsei University — or the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). Even students at the top three universities are increasingly quitting to enter local medical schools the next year. Last year, 341 SNU students, 855 Korea University students and 678 Yonsei University students voluntarily quit. As more than 80 percent of SNU dropouts were studying natural science or engineering, they are believed to have quit the prestigious university to enter a medical school.

Could becoming a doctor ensure the highest pay and job security? Did the parents of those elementary school students really make the best choice for their children? Is it really good for our society for parents to compel their kids to go to private academies to choose a certain profession?

In an age of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, much of what is right today could be wrong tomorrow. Professions are no exception. After the 1997-98 foreign exchange reserve crisis, many Koreans wanted to become teachers or public servants citing job security. Education universities for elementary school teacher aspirants once attracted the most applicants. The teaching profession was the best job in Korea thanks to decent treatment, job security and generous pension benefits. But not anymore. A drastic decrease in students due to the ultralow birthrate, students's and parents’ deepening infringement on teachers’ rights and too much administrative work have made the teaching profession less attractive.

A recent survey on 11,377 teachers across the country shows that 87 percent of them are considering quitting or finding other careers, 68.4 percent were not satisfied with their job and 26.6 percent of them received psychiatric counseling or treatment over the past five years. The competition rate for entering education universities plunged to 1:1 from 10:1. Research by the Korea Institute of Public Administration unveiled that 65.3 percent of civil servants with less than five years of service intend to leave their once-cherished officialdom.

Korean doctors enjoy one of the highest levels of pay among OECD members. Besides, as doctors’ license has no expiration date, they can be respected by others and have stability after completing the tough training course. This helps explain the preference for the profession.

However, once the concept of medical treatment and the role of doctors change, the profession can lose attractiveness and popularity quickly. In the past, becoming a doctor required studying to acquire the knowledge needed to treat and cure patients. That’s why patients trusted them for their diagnosis and prescriptions. But if medical knowledge becomes universal instead of being confined to the professional realm, everything changes.

“The Patient Will See You Now book,” a book by Eric Topol, a renowned cardiologist in the U.S., offers a glimpse at the future of medical services. The author argues that once the monopoly of medical services disappears in the digital revolution, the absolute authority of doctors will quickly collapse, triggering what the author calls a “democratization of medicine.” If digital healthcare spreads further and remote diagnosis and treatment becomes the new norm thanks to AI, doctors’ roles will inevitably change. The clinics-based medical system will most likely be replaced by AI-based medical services.

The surging demand for medical services from humanity’s extended life expectancy will destroy the fence of the narrow medical territory. An increasing number of mechanical and electronic engineering scholars are already leading the development of cutting-edge medical devices, not to mention the launches of start-ups by mechanical engineering professors to deal with future medical challenges. Just as teachers’ roles are changing due to digital learning and remote lectures, individual clinics’ role will have to change in tandem with the propagation of digital healthcare.

As seen in the Hippocratic Oath, doctors are certainly a noble profession to save human lives. But if all the frenzy over getting admitted into medical schools stems from the desire to seek job security and economic remuneration, our future is doomed. A society without diversity will be dark.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.