KMA Opposes New Regional Medical Schools: "They Won't Solve Specialist Shortages"

"Expanding medical schools alone won't make it easy for doctors to settle in regional areas"
Calls for disclosure of evaluation scores, point allocations, and weighting
"Prioritize support for existing medical schools and training hospitals"

The Korean Medical Association (KMA) opposed the government's push to establish new medical schools, calling for the selection process and evaluation results to be made public. The KMA argued that there is insufficient objective evidence that establishing new medical schools would actually improve regional healthcare, and that the initiative is being driven by local governments' efforts to attract schools rather than by a national mid- to long-term plan.

The Korean Medical Association in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, on the 20th. The association announced that it would launch the Special Committee for Proper Healthcare (Olteukwi) instead of the Pan-Medical Measures Committee, whose launch had been announced for that day. Photo by Kim Hyunmin kimhyun81@

In a statement released on November 4, the KMA said, "Establishing new medical schools is a major national policy that will have long-term effects on the supply and demand of physicians nationwide, the quality of medical education, and the healthcare delivery system. It must be pursued on the basis of objective evidence and a thorough review of the national healthcare system as a whole, not in response to regional demands or political interests."

The KMA particularly criticized the process for selecting candidate locations for new medical schools, saying that sufficient objectivity and transparency had not been ensured. The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced on November 4 that it had quantitatively evaluated candidate locations using 13 indicators across four areas: access to medical schools, shortages in medical supply, healthcare vulnerability, and policy effectiveness. However, the KMA said that detailed information needed to verify the fairness of the selection had not been disclosed, including the scores and weights for each evaluation indicator, the scores for each university, and the final evaluation results.

The KMA said, "Establishing new medical schools is a policy that requires a massive investment of public funds and has a long-term impact on the national system for training medical professionals. The government must demonstrate the objectivity and fairness of the selection by disclosing each university's evaluation score, detailed evaluation criteria, the scores and weights assigned to each item, and the final evaluation results." It also said the initiative should not be seen as a "give-every-region-a-share" approach to establishing medical schools.

The KMA also questioned whether establishing new medical schools could improve regional healthcare. It said that for medical school graduates to settle in a region, the necessary conditions must include not only medical education but also residency training opportunities after graduation, jobs for specialists, suitable working conditions and compensation at medical institutions, and living conditions such as housing and education.

The KMA stressed, "Establishing new medical schools alone will not solve the shortage of medical professionals in regional areas. To address the shortage of specialists in essential regional healthcare, priority should be given to training specialists by supporting existing regional medical schools and training hospitals, and to policies that lead graduates to work at regional medical institutions and stay there long term, rather than to establishing new medical schools."

The KMA said that concrete plans were also needed to ensure the quality of medical education, including securing faculty, educational facilities, clinical training, and teaching hospitals. It said the effectiveness of the initiative should be assessed using tangible indicators, such as securing specialists in essential regional healthcare and improving access to medical services, rather than treating the establishment of new medical schools itself as a policy achievement.

The KMA also argued that because the initiative is being carried out through a process in which local governments recommend candidate universities and draw up implementation plans jointly with those universities, it could be swayed by regional competition to attract schools rather than by long-term planning for the national healthcare system.

The KMA said, "Because national medical schools and national university hospitals are core public infrastructure underpinning the national healthcare system, decisions to establish new national medical schools should be made in accordance with a national master plan, not in response to local governments' proposals or demands." It added, "If the government pursues policy in the current manner without making the sustainability of the national healthcare system its top priority, it will not achieve the desired results."

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