7,648 Residents Eligible to Apply for Second Half Recruitment
Concurrent Positions for Residents with Licenses Restricted by Current Law Are Illegal
Additional Recruitment for Essential Medical Residents in Second Half Due to Vacancies
The government requested hospitals to collectively process the resignation of residents who did not return, but 43.5% of the non-returning residents' resignation letters were not accepted. This is interpreted as many training hospitals fearing that residents will transfer to more preferred Big 5 hospitals (Seoul National University, Samsung Seoul, Seoul Asan, Seoul St. Mary’s, Severance Hospital). As a result, only the 56.5% who have already been processed for resignation are expected to be eligible to apply for the second half resident recruitment.
According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare on the 19th, among 151 hospitals that hired residents until the previous day, 7,648 residents, accounting for 56.5% of the total 13,531 residents (as of March 2024), were processed for resignation at 110 hospitals.
In particular, looking only at the Big 5 hospitals, more than 90% of their affiliated residents were processed for resignation. The number of resignations reached 3,279, which is 92.0% of the total 3,563 residents. On the other hand, 41 hospitals did not even submit the resignation processing results. Also, hospitals such as Gyeongbuk, Hanyang·Wongwang·Chung-Ang University hospitals submitted data on vacancy scales but did not process the resignation of non-returning residents.
Therefore, the number of residents eligible to apply for the second half resident recruitment starting on the 22nd is expected to be limited to the 7,648 who have been processed for resignation. Residents whose resignation letters were not accepted cannot apply for the second half recruitment. According to current law, it is illegal for residents whose licenses are tied to training hospitals to hold concurrent positions. According to Article 14 of the Regulations on Training and Qualification Recognition for Specialists, residents must not open medical institutions and, except in very exceptional cases, cannot work at medical institutions other than their training hospitals. To apply to a hospital other than their original affiliated hospital, residents must completely relinquish their resident status.
The background to the difficulty in smoothly accepting resignation letters from nearly half of the residents is interpreted as concerns about the outflow of residents from training hospitals. A representative from a tertiary hospital in Seoul that did not accept resident resignation letters said, "The government said they would give second half TOs if resignation letters were accepted, but it cannot be helped," adding, "If we accept the residents' resignations, it completely blocks their way back." Another representative from a tertiary hospital said, "If we process resignations now, there is no way to reverse it," and "It seems that the Big 5 hospitals accepted resignations because they are confident about the second half resident recruitment."
A resident whose resignation was not accepted also said, "Some may try to move to hospitals with better training environments like the Big 5," and "Most regional hospitals seem to consistently refuse to accept resignation letters to prevent resident outflow." They added, "I have inquired several times with the hospital hoping for a quick acceptance of my resignation due to financial difficulties, but there has been no response."
However, some opinions suggest that various issues have had a complex impact. A representative from a tertiary hospital that accepted resignation letters from non-returning residents said, "I understand that internal faculty opposition, management calculations, and difficulties in recruiting residents for the second half are mixed, resulting in an ambiguous situation."
Meanwhile, the total number of residents that training hospitals hope to recruit for the second half, as submitted to the government, is 7,707, which is more than the 7,648 who gave up appointment or resigned. This is because vacancies that occurred regardless of the current resident outflow incident were also reflected. For example, vacancies in so-called 'unpopular departments' such as obstetrics and gynecology and pediatrics, where resident application rates are low, were also included in the second half recruitment application numbers.
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