Trainee doctors must engage in dialogue

As the current medical vacuum was primarily caused by their walkout, they must accept a meeting with the president. We hope both sides untie the knot this time.

Government officials have delivered President Yoon Suk Yeol’s intention to meet with trainee doctors to listen to their demands after they left their hospital to protest the government’s plan to increase the medical school enrollment quota. Expectations for dialogue are growing after the government’s alleged contact with their representative.

In a nationally televised speech on Monday, President Yoon left some room for dialogue “toward a better policy direction if the medical community presents a better option.” Yoon’s policy chief Sung Tae-yoon went a step further by suggesting that the government-proposed increase of 2,000 more medical students annually over the next five years is not irreversible. We welcome the latest development as it means the government took a step back from the president’s steadfast adherence to exactly 2,000.

In the meantime, the ongoing medical crisis is deepening. Seoul National University Hospital on Tuesday declared that it will enter emergency management mode, as seen in its shutdown of 10 wards out of 60 and acceptance of doctors’ applications for unpaid leave. Other large hospitals are no different. Some could go bankrupt unless there is a breakthrough in the deadlock. Medical professors have started to cut their diagnosis and treatment for patients.

They had to make the decision due to their exhaustion after they cared for patients on behalf of trainee doctors. The sad death of a three-year-old girl after nine large hospitals refused to accept her was basically caused by a lack of medical staff at hospitals. Such a tragedy could be repeated at any time.

As it turns out, only 4.3 percent of the 3,068 applicants for internships registered with their hospital before the April 2 deadline. Without extraordinary measures, large hospitals must operate without intern doctors. That’s not all. Medical students who left their classrooms to join the protest could soon fail their courses. If this unprecedented crisis continues, medical schools may have to teach 8,000 students next year, not the usual 5,000. The Medical Professors Association has recommended the representative of trainee doctors meet with the president with no conditions attached. The presidential office immediately welcomed it.

The ball is in the trainee doctors’ court now. Despite all the conflicts of interest between doctors and the government, they must not miss the opportunity to talk since the government showed a compromising attitude. As the current medical vacuum was primarily caused by their walkout, they must accept a meeting with the president. We hope both sides untie the knot this time.