Medical school professors flock to Seoul and Gyeonggi area

The medical infrastructure in rural and provincial areas of Korea is reaching a critical point as professors from medical schools in these regions migrate to Seoul and Gyeonggi metropolitan areas. This trend is occurring even as the government increases student quotas in 32 provincial medical schools, leaving these institutions struggling to maintain adequate staffing levels. Many professors are experiencing burnout, exacerbated by a mass exodus of medical trainees, and are opting to leave due to concerns about the feasibility of teaching an increased number of students without a corresponding increase in faculty. Many of these professors are transferring to large medical centers in Seoul and Gyeonggi, further widening the gap in medical infrastructure that the policy aimed to address.

Government statistics indicate that 1,451 professors teaching medical specialists resigned from 88 hospitals across 40 medical schools nationwide, with 255 leaving their positions. The impact is especially acute in provincial areas: Busan National University Hospital lost 19 professors, reportedly making it difficult to even treat patients with myocardial infarctions. Kangwon National University Hospital’s internal medicine specialists have also left, hampering collaboration with other departments, including obstetrics and gynecology. Emergency rooms at several hospitals, such as Chungbuk National University Hospital and Chungnam National University Sejong Hospital, face the risk of shutdowns, with Aju University Hospital in Gyeonggi potentially next.

The shortage of professors in provincial medical schools has been a longstanding issue, prompting repeated calls for increased medical fees and improved living conditions for doctors in these areas. However, the government has insisted that producing more doctors will ‘trickle down’ and eventually resolve the issue, overlooking the more complex challenge of adjusting medical fees. This misdirected policy has left even the most dedicated doctors feeling hopeless, leading them to abandon provincial areas. Compounding the problem, there are growing concerns that hospitals may lose their medical school accreditation due to delays in government funding to accommodate the increased student quotas. These factors are driving more professors to relocate to Seoul and Gyeonggi, where they find better infrastructure and working conditions.

As Korea’s Chuseok Thanksgiving holiday approaches, the government's immediate priority should be to prevent a crisis in emergency room services at major medical centers. On August 22, the government introduced a measure to increase medical fees for non-critical patients using the ER. This move came too late and has done little to prevent the growing emergency as doctors continue to leave amid a resurgence of COVID-19. It is long past time for medical funding to be raised to levels comparable to national defense spending, a point the government has repeatedly, yet ineffectively, made. If the exodus of medical professors from provincial areas continues, further degrading the medical infrastructure, the increased student quotas will be of little value in schools where effective education and training are no longer possible.