Hospitals commence additional recruit of trainee doctors amid standoff

Applications to be open until Aug. 14 for first-year residents and Aug. 16 for second to fourth-year residents

A poster announcing the recruitment of trainee doctors is posted at a general hospital in Seoul on Wednesday. (Yonhap)

Local training hospitals began announcing new recruitment notices for trainee doctors Friday, eight days after the Ministry of Health and Welfare called for additional recruitment notices due to low turnout during the initial recruitment round two weeks ago.

The second round of recruitment for local training hospitals is scheduled to last until Aug. 14 for first-year resident doctors and until Aug. 16 for second to fourth-year resident doctors.

The government plans to hold written examinations for first-year residents on Aug. 17, and training hospitals will finish recruitment processes by the end of August to ensure training programs start in September.

The additional recruitment follows an earlier recruitment attempt in which only 104 junior doctors -- consisting of 13 interns and 91 residents -- applied for the training programs from July 22 to July 31.

According to the Health Ministry, these applicants represent just 1.4 percent of the 7,645 available positions. For the training program starting in September, hospitals initially planned to recruit 2,525 interns and 5,120 residents.

Of the 104 junior doctors, 45 had applied to the five biggest general hospitals in Seoul, which accounts for 43.4 percent of the total number of applicants, according to the ministry. The “Big Five” hospitals in South Korea include Asan Medical Center, Samsung Medical Center, Severance Hospital, Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital and Seoul National University Hospital.

The earlier recruitment of new trainee doctors in late July comes after the government announced that it would withdraw its return-to-work orders for protesting doctors.

Following the government's announcement, hospitals processed resignations from about 10,000 junior doctors who had quit in February to protest a reform plan expanding medical school quotas. This cleared the way for them to find new jobs and for hospitals to hire new trainees.

Jung Yoon-soon, a senior health official, explained during Wednesday's Health Ministry briefing that this recruitment aims to accommodate trainees who previously missed short application windows due to external perceptions, noting it will be the last round.

Trainee doctors whose resignations have been processed have shown to seek job opportunities outside of training hospitals, however.

According to the Health Ministry on Wednesday, close to 11 percent of those whose resignations have been processed were found to be working as general practitioners in local clinics.

By Lee Jung-joo(lee.jungjoo@heraldcorp.com)