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South Korea health alert raised to 'severe' over doctors walkout

12 Comments
By Ju-min Park and Jack Kim

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12 Comments
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Got to admire the Koreans.....if they don't like something they demonstrate.

The complete opposite of the Japanese who have been taught from an early age that protests and demonstrations are taboo........resulting in a government that has total carte blanche over its population.

-4 ( +4 / -8 )

This is a problem in Japan too. Government funded university hospitals and prefectural hospitals rely much on trainee doctors and other medical staff. These trainees work on contract status, and are paid much less and receive none of the benefits that the regular permanent staff. When they become fully qualified and licensed, they will be replaced with new trainees. Such institutions are phasing out the full-time staff for trainees, and the gig economy gathers steam.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

This is a problem in Japan too. Government funded university hospitals and prefectural hospitals rely much on trainee doctors and other medical staff. These trainees work on contract status, and are paid much less and receive none of the benefits that the regular permanent staff. When they become fully qualified and licensed, they will be replaced with new trainees. Such institutions are phasing out the full-time staff for trainees, and the gig economy gathers steam.

Spot on, my friend.

I was a surprised to find out that a junior doctor that I know in Tokyo was only earning about ¥230,000 a month just before he became qualified and even after that his salary wasn't increased by much since he worked at a university hospital. He had to moonlight at a hospital in Tohoku at night just to make ends meet.

Now you can see why there are so many clinics in Japan.

0 ( +5 / -5 )

I was a surprised to find out that a junior doctor that I know in Tokyo was only earning about ¥230,000 a month just before he became qualified and even after that his salary wasn't increased by much since he worked at a university hospital. He had to moonlight at a hospital in Tohoku at night just to make ends meet.

Taught a few junior docs, and exactly the same situation for all of them. The can earn a decent amount on the side doing part time stuff in private clinics, but they work themselves to the bone for it. Not healthy at all.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

They did this with the main hospital in my city, too. Before getting permission to rebuild (they had to to get the new land) they promised they would keep the same staff and hire new staff as well. Got permission to build, built the new hospital, and then fired or forced all the doctors to leave to look for permanent positions, announcing that they would be bringing in trainees and rotating them out as they became physicians, and would only have specialists on a rotational basis, not hired as residents and all residents, as I said, fired or forced to move on. People were outraged and they said they had left the option to the doctor's to come in once a week but they all chose to look for permanent positions elsewhere, and shrugged.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I am struggling to comprehend what this craziness is about

Is this dispute related to fair renumeration/salary?

Contractual employment practice/policy?

Lives depend, at risk if disputes of this nature are allowed to fester.

He also called on the medical community to stop "pushing young doctors" and said the government is always open to dialogue.

There is clearly a catastrophic breakdown of communication.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Doctors trainee or otherwise provide an essential service, it stands to reason to employ/value such commitment.

Cultivating a culture of recognition, your people must feel trusted and valued, is the bottom line for effective management

0 ( +0 / -0 )

It is SHAMEFUL doctors are willing to walk off jobs and put patients lives at risk just so they can control their compensations; furthermore, the idea of limit number of doctors from entering the field so they are irreplaceable, is disgusting. Selfish and conscienceless is not enough describing these greedy doctors. Wish them straight to hell.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

@itsonlyrocknroll

Is this dispute related to fair renumeration/salary?

Contractual employment practice/policy?

Currently Korean doctors make about $400K/year average as a hospital employed doctor, more if self-practicing.

This high salary was made possible by the artificial shortage of doctors created through limited number of new medical students per year, 2,000/year currently.

Yoon wants to double that to 4,000/year, creating a glut of new doctors that will hopefully pressure down doctor's pay. Doctors are fighting against doubling of medical school admissions to protect their high salary.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Thanks for the summary that was entirely missing from the article.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Many Koreans support the government's plan to increase medical school admissions, with a recent Gallup Korea poll showing about 76% of respondents in favor, regardless of political affiliation.

The reason for this public support is not because public endorses Yoon over the doctors, but to increase the chance of their children getting into medical schools and land that $400K/year doctor jobs.

Korea's industries too oppose this move because it would suck up talents who would go into study engineering and build Korea's next cutting edge microchips and fighter jets into medical schools instead.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

I see thank you Samit Basu

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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