Gov’t mulls granting practice rights to foreign medical license holders

"If the health care crisis alert reaches the ‘serious’ level as it is now, doctors with overseas medical licenses will also be able to practice medicine in Korea. This is one of the measures to solve the medical manpower shortage due to the prolonged departure of medical residents (interns, residents) from hospitals.

On Wednesday, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced that it would announce the partial revision of the Medical Act Enforcement Rules containing such content by May 20. In the amendment, ‘medical support work recognized by the Minister of Health and Welfare as necessary to protect the health of patients when a serious level of health care crisis alert is issued’ was added to the work that foreign medical license holders can perform. Currently, overseas doctors can provide medical treatment only for purposes such as exchange professorships, educational research projects, and medical volunteer work. “This is to respond to the medical gap caused by a shortage of medical personnel during a health care disaster crisis,” the ministry said.

However, medical groups protested. “We are concerned about overseas doctors licensed in countries with unverified medical education systems practicing medicine in Korea," an official from the Korean Medical Association said. In early March, the government reviewed a plan to ease requirements for overseas medical school graduates to obtain a domestic medical license in preparation for prolonged group action by doctors but did not implement it.

Meanwhile, according to the medical community, if interns and residents do not return by May 20, they will not be able to take the specialist exam next year due to an ‘insufficient training period.’ Under the regulations, if the non-training period exceeds three months, they cannot take the specialist exam, but the last year of residency left the hospital around February 20."


조유라 기자 jyr0101@donga.com