Gov't weighs new medical license system as general practitioners surge due to strike

The government is mulling introducing a new type of doctor’s license that permits doctors without specialty licenses to treat patients, as it views general licenses as insufficient to ensure the quality of medical services.

Doctors wearing their medical gowns walk inside a general hospital in downtown Seoul on Monday. [YONHAP]

The government is mulling introducing a new type of doctor’s license that permits doctors without specialty licenses to treat patients, as it views general licenses as insufficient to ensure the quality of medical services.

The recent move appears related to thousands of resigned junior doctors seeking employment with their general medical licenses.

In Korea, medical school graduates who pass a state-run exam can practice medicine independently. It means they can treat patients as general doctors right after completing six years of college education or pursue medical specialties by undergoing four years of training at tertiary hospitals.

Although the majority of medical graduates become junior doctors to earn board-certified specialty licenses, the ratio of general doctors practicing medicine had risen from 12 percent in 2013 to 16 percent in 2021, the Health Ministry said.

Kang Seul-ki, an official from the Health Ministry, said that the medical community also voiced “safety concerns” about general doctors who opened their clinics or started treating patients after completing their collegiate education, according to a Yonhap News Agency's report on Tuesday.

She added that the ministry will establish an educational program to help inexperienced general doctors develop a higher level of competencies in practicing medicine independently.

According to Yonhap News Agency, health experts at a recent special committee meeting on medical reform called for a separate assessment system to cultivate medical interns as independent clinical doctors.

A patient is carried by a medical worker at a general hospital in Seoul on Wednesday. [YONHAP]

In response, doctors denounced the government’s new plan and claimed it would “cripple the medical system established upon the current licensing system.”

“The government is discouraging doctors who are ready to serve and practice medicine from joining the health care front lines while it is insisting on adding 2,000 seats in medical schools’ admission, citing physician shortage as a reason,” Choi An-na, a spokesperson from the Korean Medical Association (KMA) said Tuesday.

The association said it would launch a protest to expel the country’s president if the government and lawmakers do not halt its preparations for legislation of a nursing bill — which allow nurses with physician assistant titles to practice medicine and cover a certain extent of doctor’s duties.

The National Assembly will pass a judgment on the bill at the plenary session scheduled on Aug. 28.

With a protracted standoff between the medical community and the government, data from the Education Ministry revealed that over 97 percent of medical students stayed outside of their classrooms in the spring semester. Their actions were in line with a mass boycott that began in February, protesting the government’s drive to increase admission seats in medical schools.

Of 18,217 enrolled students at 40 medical schools nationwide, 495, or 2.7 percent, had attended their classes as of July 22, according to Democratic Party lawmaker Jin Sun-mee’s office, which obtained the statistics from the Education Ministry.

Students in their first year of pre-med courses recorded the lowest attendance rate at 1.6 percent — just 53 participated in education out of 3,191 students. Those in their last year of college education marked the highest participation ratio at 3.5 percent, with 104 students taking classes out of 2,966.

On Wednesday, the Korean Society of Emergency Medicine announced that it had formed an internal special committee to develop a sound emergency patient care system.

The committee will survey hospitals and compile a list of medical professionals who can perform CPR and treatments after resuscitation at large hospitals.

The society promised its best effort to make practical improvements in the emergency medicine field.

Park Dan speaks to reporters on his way to the police agency for questioning in western Seoul on Wednesday. [NEWS1]

On the same day, Park Dan, head of the Korean Intern Resident Association, attended police questioning as a witness in a criminal case related to junior doctors' collective walkout.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency summoned Park to its regional investigation unit in Mapo District, western Seoul, to investigate whether incumbent and former senior officials at the KMA meddled in and instigated junior doctors to resign en masse.

Park told reporters that he “does not think the KMA abetted” the junior doctors’ resignations, noting that such actions were their “individual decisions.”

Park also said he “cannot understand the reason for an investigation when more than half a year has passed" since he left the hospital.

“In Korea, fairness and common sense seem to have disappeared, leaving only tyranny and suppression,” Park said. He added that he would cooperate with the investigation out of duty to protect freedom.

Police have been investigating the allegations against the then-top officials at the KMA on charges of violating the Medical Service Act, interfering with others’ business and aiding and abetting the doctors’ strike.

BY LEE SOO-JUNG [lee.soojung1@joongang.co.kr]