Patients' lives at stake over 'medical seat expansion'

A political dispute over the expansion of medical schools has reached a crisis point after the government allocated medical seats to universities. Professors at medical schools across the country announced that they are resigning en masse on Monday and scaling back their practices. The government will begin suspending the licenses of resident doctors who have defected from hospitals starting tomorrow. Han Dong-hoon, chair of the ruling People’s Power Party’s emergency committee, met with the presidents of the National Association of Medical College Professors Sunday and asked them to refrain from collective action.

The decision by the ruling party leadership, which has so far ignored the clashes between medical doctors and the government, to talk to the medical community is likely a response to voices within the party that a medical service vacuum could be detrimental in the general elections. While it may be too late, many Koreans hope the ruling party will mediate and find a breakthrough in the medical crisis. Despite the ruling party's efforts at dialog, the government is sticking to 'an increase by 2,000 medical seats.’ Experts who agree that the medical school expansion is necessary have repeatedly called on the government for a slowdown by taking into consideration educational and training conditions, and a professor at Seoul National University who was the only professor in favor of the 2,000-student expansion has changed his position and proposed a one-year delay. While the ruling party and the government support expanding medical schools, they must be flexible enough to recognize changing sentiment among the general public concerned about the prolonged medical gap.

Even within the medical community, moderates who have advocated dialog and compromise are being pushed aside, and hardliners are gaining strength. A professor who has been trying to reconcile differences as chairman of the emergency committee of the National Association of Medical College Professors is under pressure to resign, while two hardline candidates are facing a runoff for the next presidency of the Korean Medical Association. Doctors and medical students who refuse to join the collective action of the medical community are accused and stigmatized as being ‘traitors.’ While the government's move to allocate student seats to medical students may have sparked a backlash, the extreme behavior of a group of professionals who handle patients' lives will only make it harder to resolve the situation and lose the public's trust. It is also worth reflecting on how responsibly the medical community has engaged in the government's discussion of medical seat expansion.

Last month, when the exodus of resident doctors from hospitals began, the chairman of the emergency committee of the council of Seoul National University medical college professors likened the conflict over medical school expansion to the ‘Trial of Solomon,’ where two mothers claimed a child as their own. The government, which has no alternative to fill the medical vacuum but still is trying to force a 2,000-person expansion, and the medical community, which turns a blind eye to the suffering of patients because they hate such a government, are no different from the fake mother who says, ‘Let's split the child in half to share it.’