Yoon Ordered "Increase Medical School Quotas Further"... Board of Audit and Inspection: "Lack of Logical Basis"

Board of Audit and Inspection Releases Findings on Medical School Quota Expansion
Ministry of Health and Welfare Proposed "Phased Increase" Multiple Times
Considering Medical Community's Opposition
But Former President Yoon Repeatedly Rejected, Insisting "Increase Even More"

On the morning of November 7, 2024, a live broadcast of President Yoon Sukyeol's national address and press conference was shown on a television installed at a university hospital in downtown Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News

It has been confirmed that former President Yoon Sukyeol repeatedly rejected the government's "phased expansion plan" for increasing medical school enrollment quotas during his push to expand them. There is an interpretation that former President Yoon's insistence on a "2,000-person simultaneous increase plan" fueled resistance from the medical community. The Board of Audit and Inspection pointed out that there was also a lack of justification and proper procedures for these decisions.

According to the audit report on the "process of promoting the increase of medical school quotas" released by the Board of Audit and Inspection on November 27, former President Yoon received a report from the Ministry of Health and Welfare on August 19, 2022-about three months after the launch of his administration-regarding the plan to increase medical school enrollment. At the time, former President Yoon reportedly stated, "We must increase it sufficiently as much as needed."

The issue was the scale of the increase. On June 2, 2023, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, considering opposition from the medical community, reported a plan to increase the number by 500 students per year from 2025 to 2030, for a total of 3,000. However, former President Yoon rejected the plan, stating that "the increase should be at least 1,000." Four months later, the ministry reported a plan to secure an additional 5,000 students by 2028, but former President Yoon again ordered a review, saying, "Increase it even more sufficiently."

Even after that, the ministry proposed revised plans, such as increasing by only 900 in the first year and then expanding to 2,000, or increasing by 2,000 but deferring 300 in the first year, but these were not accepted. Not only the president but also the then chief of staff, policy chief, and senior secretary for social affairs all supported the plan to add 2,000 students per year for five years, totaling 10,000.

However, the Board of Audit and Inspection explained that the process of estimating the "number of doctors in shortage," which served as the basis for deciding the scale of the medical school quota increase, was not logical. The Ministry of Health and Welfare simply added the current shortage of 5,000 doctors to the projected future shortage of 10,000, estimating that there would be a shortage of about 15,000 doctors by 2035. The Board of Audit and Inspection pointed out, "This was calculated inaccurately because adjustments were not made to reflect demographic changes such as population aging."

Deficiencies were also found in the process of gathering opinions and deliberation. The Health and Medical Policy Deliberation Committee, which was supposed to discuss the medical school quota, was not provided with sufficient materials or time for discussion. The committee only received simple reports, such as the plan to increase by 2,000, and did not review specific details. It was also revealed that the Ministry of Health and Welfare had notified the media of the plan to expand medical school quotas before receiving the committee’s deliberation results. The Board of Audit and Inspection criticized, "This led to criticism that the conclusion had already been decided before the meeting, and that the deliberation was merely a formality."

Additionally, the Board of Audit and Inspection reported that there was no one on the Medical School Quota Allocation Committee who could properly assess the conditions of the universities, and that the Ministry of Education arbitrarily adjusted the quotas for each university without conducting on-site inspections.