Possibility of Increased Confusion Due to Specialist Chain Transfers
As residents collectively withdrew due to conflicts in medical policy, the annual salaries of specialists skyrocketed. Nevertheless, regional university hospitals continue to suffer from manpower shortages.
On the 27th, Yonhap News reported that Konyang University Hospital in Daejeon offered an annual salary of 275 million KRW (excluding severance pay) to recruit internal medicine, cardiovascular thoracic surgery specialists, and pediatric specialists for its emergency center. Despite this, they are struggling with recruitment.
The situation at Sejong Chungnam National University Hospital is similar. Due to a shortage of emergency medicine specialists, the hospital has suspended adult emergency care in the night emergency room and has been searching for new specialists for two months. With no suitable candidates, they recently posted a recruitment notice for six specialists, offering an annual salary of up to 400 million KRW including incentives. Currently, the hospital has seven specialists working in both adult and pediatric emergency rooms respectively. Originally, 15 specialists worked in the adult emergency room, but eight have left, leaving only seven remaining.
As the medical gap prolongs, the number of large hospitals ceasing operations is increasing. A quiet scene at the emergency medical center of a hospital in Seoul. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@
In this situation, local government heads have recently joined the debate over high salaries. Sejong Mayor Choi Min-ho stated at a recent press conference, “The focus of the issue is the labor cost of emergency room doctors,” adding, “Doctors at Sejong Chungnam National University Hospital earn about 370 million KRW, but they moved because other hospitals offered salaries exceeding 400 million KRW.” If salaries continue to rise competitively like this, a chain migration of emergency medicine specialists may occur, increasing confusion.
The recruitment difficulties at national university hospitals located in regional areas were severe even before the medical policy conflicts. From 2021 to the end of September 2023, when looking at recruitment announcements for physician positions excluding residents and interns by department at national university hospitals nationwide, five national university hospitals posted a total of 3,208 announcements recruiting 6,613 people, but only 3,523 applicants (53.3%) applied.
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