Sequential supply disruptions of interns and residents feared
Posted April. 04, 2024 07:49,
Updated April. 04, 2024 07:49
Sequential supply disruptions of interns and residents feared.
April. 04, 2024 07:49.
.
The prolonged medical vacancies are raising concerns that the supply of physicians and surgeons will be disrupted. While interns and residents who have submitted their resignations are refusing to return, most of this year's intern candidates have not applied for internship positions. They had announced their intention to abandon their training in February in sympathy with existing residents' mass resignation and refused to accept appointments as interns for the first half of this year. The plunge in the number of new interns, which has been supplied steadily every year, is bound to create a gap in the long-term supply of doctors.
According to the Health and Welfare Ministry, of the 3,068 people who passed the intern exam this year, only 131 (4 percent) applied for appointments as interns. The remaining 96 percent gave up on intern training. Seoul National University Hospital enrolled only six out of 166 intern positions, and Yonsei Severance Hospital enrolled only four out of 151. Pusan National University Hospital and Yangsan Pusan National University Hospital did not fill any of their 60 and 38 intern slots, respectively.
If there is a shortage of interns, there will be sequential shortages of residents, specialists, and professors. There will be an immediate shortage of residents starting as early as next year. Moreover, if a large number of medical students on ‘allied leave’ are flunked, interns will not be produced next year. As intern training hospitals are mainly tertiary hospitals that play a crucial role in essential and critical medical care, the shortage of interns and residents will directly affect patients.
It is also worrisome that in a survey of resident physicians who have left their employer hospitals, three out of 10 said they did not intend to complete intern and resident training. This means that doctors who have endured grueling training to support essential and critical medical care will give up becoming specialists altogether. This is a huge loss for society.
Some in the medical community have a pessimistic view that the shortage will continue for at least four to five years. Even if Korea increases the number of medical students by 2,000 next year, it will be six years before we have any medical graduates. It takes 10 years to produce a fully trained specialist. If we don't address this medical service vacuum promptly, there will be serious problems with the supply and demand of doctors in the long run. Essential medical services and local and provincial medical care fields where doctors are already in short supply will face a situation that is close to a disaster. How will the government, which has stuck to the figure of 2,000 additional medical students only to lose an opportunity for dialogue, or the doctors who left the hospitals without offering any alternative measure, take responsibility for such a disaster?
韓國語
The prolonged medical vacancies are raising concerns that the supply of physicians and surgeons will be disrupted. While interns and residents who have submitted their resignations are refusing to return, most of this year's intern candidates have not applied for internship positions. They had announced their intention to abandon their training in February in sympathy with existing residents' mass resignation and refused to accept appointments as interns for the first half of this year. The plunge in the number of new interns, which has been supplied steadily every year, is bound to create a gap in the long-term supply of doctors.
According to the Health and Welfare Ministry, of the 3,068 people who passed the intern exam this year, only 131 (4 percent) applied for appointments as interns. The remaining 96 percent gave up on intern training. Seoul National University Hospital enrolled only six out of 166 intern positions, and Yonsei Severance Hospital enrolled only four out of 151. Pusan National University Hospital and Yangsan Pusan National University Hospital did not fill any of their 60 and 38 intern slots, respectively.
If there is a shortage of interns, there will be sequential shortages of residents, specialists, and professors. There will be an immediate shortage of residents starting as early as next year. Moreover, if a large number of medical students on ‘allied leave’ are flunked, interns will not be produced next year. As intern training hospitals are mainly tertiary hospitals that play a crucial role in essential and critical medical care, the shortage of interns and residents will directly affect patients.
It is also worrisome that in a survey of resident physicians who have left their employer hospitals, three out of 10 said they did not intend to complete intern and resident training. This means that doctors who have endured grueling training to support essential and critical medical care will give up becoming specialists altogether. This is a huge loss for society.
Some in the medical community have a pessimistic view that the shortage will continue for at least four to five years. Even if Korea increases the number of medical students by 2,000 next year, it will be six years before we have any medical graduates. It takes 10 years to produce a fully trained specialist. If we don't address this medical service vacuum promptly, there will be serious problems with the supply and demand of doctors in the long run. Essential medical services and local and provincial medical care fields where doctors are already in short supply will face a situation that is close to a disaster. How will the government, which has stuck to the figure of 2,000 additional medical students only to lose an opportunity for dialogue, or the doctors who left the hospitals without offering any alternative measure, take responsibility for such a disaster?
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