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Presidential office rules out deferring med school admissions increase

April 8, 2024

The government has no plans to defer the planned increase of medical school admissions set to start next year, a presidential official said Monday.

The official was responding to Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo’s comments earlier in the day that the government will carry out an internal review of the Korean Medical Association (KMA)’s recent proposal to defer the quota expansion by a year.

“The government has never reviewed it and has no plans to review it in the future,” the official told reporters at the presidential office.

The KMA is the country’s biggest doctors’ group at the forefront of an ongoing standoff between the medical community and the government over the latter’s decision to increase annual admissions to medical schools by 2,000 seats from the current 3,058.

The presidential official reiterated that the government remains open to discussing an adjustment to the number 2,000 “if the medical community proposes a unified opinion based on scientific and rational grounds.”

The presidential office in Seoul (Yonhap)
The presidential office in Seoul (Yonhap)