Professors at Korean Medical Schools Join Protest Against Government Plan to Increase Number of Medical Students
So even the Korean medical professors are joining in on the effort to keep the number of doctors in Korea artificially low. These creates a scarcity of the service they provide thus driving higher prices:
Some medical school professors shaved their heads or tendered resignations on Tuesday in protest over the government’s plan to increase the medical school enrollment quota, as the strike by about 9,000 trainee doctors entered its third week and the health ministry threatened to take disciplinary action against those defying a return-to-work order.
As 40 medical schools nationwide applied for a combined 3,401 additional admission seats by the Monday deadline in response to the government’s plan to hike the enrollment quota by 2,000 beginning next year, medical professors further stepped up their protests.
About 10 professors of Kangwon National University’s medical school in Chuncheon, 76 kilometers east of Seoul, held a hair-shaving ceremony Tuesday morning, expressing their opposition to the university’s application for an additional enrollment quota.
“Though many professors expressed their opposition to an increase in new admissions, the university made the opposite decision,” said Ryu Se-min, head of Kangwon National University’s medical school.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
Rewrite the immigration law. Announce to the nation that they will bring in foreign medical students and professionals trained in the Philippines, South Africa, and India – who speak English. Promise them to fast-track immigration work visas for themselves and their family – and put them up as medical students with a right to practice in Korea after they graduate. Then fire all the strikers who refuse to return to work, and then cancel their medical school residency status. Then sit back and watch as the panic sets in.
Medical school professors are licensed doctors, who’ve completed their residencies and several years of experience under their belts. They also treat patients at the hospitals that the medical schools run, in addition to teaching in medical school.
In addition, they control the fates of the thousands of trainee doctors who are doing their residencies in the above mentioned hospitals after completing medical school.
Considering that the people who sent the trainee doctors to battle are stepping in, things must not be turning out as intended for the doctors.