The government has demanded that each residency training hospital complete the acceptance of resignation letters from residents by the 15th of this month, and has established a policy to reduce the number of residency slots at hospitals that do not comply.
According to the government and medical circles on the 9th, the government delivered an official letter containing these details to each training hospital, reflecting the results of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters meeting on the previous day's doctors' collective action.
At the meeting, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters decided to withdraw administrative sanctions against all residents regardless of their return status, and to apply special exceptions to residents taking the second half of the year residency training starting in September. Currently, under the residency appointment exam guidelines, if a resident resigns during training, they cannot return to the same specialty and year within one year, but this will be relaxed to allow return to the same department and year if applying for the second half training.
However, to ensure the smooth progress of the second half residency recruitment schedule, Minister of Health and Welfare Cho Kyu-hong also emphasized, "Please complete the resignation processing for residents who have not returned by the 15th and confirm the vacancies." Since the recruitment schedule for the second half of the year at each training hospital begins around the 22nd, the government requested that the return or resignation of residents be processed by the 15th to confirm vacancies, and that the number of recruits for the second half be applied to the Residency Training Environment Evaluation Committee under the Minister of Health and Welfare by the 17th.
It was also specified that hospitals failing to properly comply with these procedures may face reductions in their residency quotas for the next year. This is explained as a requirement under the "Regulations on Specialist Training and Qualification Recognition." Although the government is promoting a shift toward specialist-centered hospitals, residents still play a crucial role in the staffing structure of training hospitals, so reducing residency quotas inevitably poses a significant risk of operational disruption for hospitals.
The government appears to have adopted a dual strategy: offering incentives such as withdrawal of administrative sanctions and special training exceptions to residents, while pressuring hospitals to finalize residents' resignation status by the 15th.
As of the 5th, out of a total of 13,756 residents at 211 training hospitals, only 1,092 were working (attendance rate of 7.9%).
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