Junior doctors job, test registration open Monday

Starting Monday, local training hospitals will begin posting job openings for junior doctors who will begin training in the second half of the year, and the registration for the state-run medical license test will open in the government's latest steps to fill the months-long medical void.

The recruitment comes after 110 out of 151 medical institutions that hired junior doctors last week completed processing the resignations of 7,648 junior doctors who left their worksites in mid-February to protest the expansion plan.

Hospitals plan to recruit 7,707 candidates -- 2,557 interns and 5,150 residents -- for the September training program, according to the Health Ministry, so that the new trainees could help reduce disruptions to medical services.

Hospitals will receive applications by the end of this month and conclude the hiring process in August. Those accepted will begin training on Sept. 1.

Earlier this month, the government said it would not count trainee doctors' five-month absence against their recruitment and allowed them to apply for the same specialty training they previously did at another hospital.

The September recruitment was previously limited to essential medical fields such as internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics and surgery. But this year's staffing will likely be open to all training courses, according to observers.

However, junior doctors are showing little signs of returning. According to reports, many are seeking jobs at private clinics as general practitioners or planning to fulfill their mandatory national service duties as medical officers. Some are mulling preparing for the United States Medical Licensing Examination to relocate to the US, reports added.

With hopes of junior doctors' return low, some medical professors vowed to boycott training programs for junior doctors.

In a show of support, professors at the Catholic University of Korea's radiology department issued a statement Saturday that they will not take part in any education or training programs for junior doctors joining the September training period.

"We will never replace training doctors who are fighting against the government's wrongful state policy with other trainees," it said.

Apart from the recruitment, the registration for the medical license exam ends on Friday. Medical schools had to submit the list of graduate candidates to the Korea Health Personnel Licensing Examination Institute last month to verify whether the test-taker was qualified. Students who do not consent to provide their personal information cannot register for the test.

However, over 95 percent of students at the country's 40 medical schools in their fourth year of medical school courses said they would refuse to take the test, a decision that could worsen the health care void.