Recruitment of Residents in the Second Half of the Year, Nearly Half of Applicants for the 'Big5'

Application Rate for Essential Medical Subjects Remains Around 1%

About 43% of applicants for the second half of this year's residency recruitment applied to large hospitals known as the Big 5, including Seoul National University Hospital and Severance Hospital.

[Image source= Photo by Yeji Kim, Office of the People Power Party lawmaker]

According to data submitted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare to the office of Kim Ye-ji, a member of the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee from the People Power Party, out of 104 applicants for the second half residency recruitment, 45 applied to the Big 5 hospitals.

For the basic clinical departments considered essential medical fields, 'Naeoe Sanso (Internal Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics),' the ratio of applicants to recruitment quota was around 1%. There were no applicants for Cardiovascular Thoracic Surgery, Urology, Preventive Medicine, Radiation Oncology, Nuclear Medicine, or Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Departments such as Dermatology, Ophthalmology, and Plastic Surgery showed higher application rates than essential medical fields but still remained low. By department, Dermatology had 2.85% (3 applicants for 105 recruitment spots), Ophthalmology 4.96% (7 applicants for 141 spots), and Plastic Surgery 1.73% (2 applicants for 115 spots). The department with the highest application rate was Psychiatry at 8.28% (13 applicants for 157 spots).