Trainee doctors defiant as hospitals set resignation deadline

Trainee doctors remained firm in their decision not to return to work as hospitals prepared to finalize their resignations Monday, despite the government’s dovish attempts to resolve the ongoing walkout.

According to industry sources, most hospitals have notified trainee doctors via text message to clarify their intention to return or resign by Monday.

The notification stated that if trainee doctors did not respond or return, they would be considered unwilling to return and could be automatically resigned.

However, few doctors have responded to major hospitals, including Seoul National University Hospital.

Accepting resignations would help trainee doctors, who have left their worksites since late February in protest of the government’s medical reform, find jobs at other hospitals.

The Monday deadline is seen as crucial for the government to help persuade trainee doctors to return to hospitals as it is linked to a timetable to hire trainee doctors in September.

If trainee doctors do not respond to the move of accepting their resignations by the deadline, they will be automatically resigned, according to government officials.

It remains uncertain how many striking trainee doctors would return to work.

A trainee doctor who submitted a resignation at a hospital in Seoul said most junior doctors seemed to be “blase” to the government’s proposal.

A professor at a state-run hospital also said there have been little signs that most trainee doctors would return to work.

More than 12,000 trainee doctors, over 90 percent of the total, have been on strike in the form of mass resignations since Feb. 20 in protest of the government’s medical school admissions quota hike.

Last week, the government decided to withdraw all punitive measures against trainee doctors defying return-to-work orders.

It also allowed trainee doctors who reapply for the training program starting in September to receive special treatment, such as an exemption from the rule prohibiting repeat applications to a department within the same year.

Meanwhile, medical professors criticized the government for allowing hospitals to automatically accept the resignations of junior doctors.

“Processing resignations unilaterally without receiving responses from individual trainee doctors on their intention to return or quit will only deteriorate the situation,” three groups of medical professors said in a joint statement.