Students from School Districts Spanning Multiple Medical Service Areas Now Eligible for Local Medical Student Track

Ministry of Health and Welfare Prioritizes Application to Chungbuk Innovation City School District

The government is revising the residency requirements to ensure that students living in areas assigned to high schools as a single school district spanning more than one medical service area do not face disadvantages when applying through the local medical student selection track.

On August 27, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced the legislative preview of partial amendments to the “Enforcement Decree of the Act on Fostering and Supporting Local Doctors” and the “Notification on Selection and Recruitment through the Local Medical Student Selection Track.” The legislative preview period runs until the 28th.

According to the current Local Doctor Act, applicants to the local medical student selection track must have graduated from a middle or high school located in the region where the relevant medical school is based or in adjacent areas, and must have lived in the region where the school is located during their period of enrollment. However, when a single school district covers multiple medical service areas, students may be assigned to high schools based on their residence within the district, resulting in a mismatch between the medical service area of the student’s residence and that of their school. In such cases, a blind spot can occur where students, through no fault of their own, become ineligible to apply through the local medical student track.

The amendment introduces an exception for such cases. For areas designated by the Minister of Health and Welfare—after consultation with the Minister of Education and public notification—where high school freshmen are assigned to a single school district crossing more than one medical service area in accordance with the Enforcement Decree of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and other relevant laws, it will be recognized that the residency requirement is fulfilled if the student has lived in any part of the area included in the school district during their period of high school attendance.

The specific applicable regions will be set by separate notification. This revised notification designates the Chungbuk Innovation City school district as a priority area. According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Education from August 12 to 18 targeting provincial and metropolitan offices of education on the status of divergence between the medical service area of residence for school placement and that of the school's location, it was confirmed that currently, this situation only applies to Chungbuk Innovation City. The Chungbuk Innovation City school district spans Jincheon County (part of the Cheongju medical service area) and Eumseong County (part of the Chungju medical service area), with the applicable areas being Deoksan-eup in Jincheon and Maengdong-myeon in Eumseong.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to expedite the related procedures so that the amendment is completed before the start of the early admission recruitment for the 2027 academic year, which is set to begin on September 7. The ministry will also inform universities and provincial and metropolitan offices of education operating the local medical student selection track of the changes, to prevent confusion during the qualification assessment process.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.