"Not a Monthly Salary, But a Daily Wage of 4.8 Million Won"... Zero Applicants Despite Unprecedented Job Posting?Why?

Medical Crisis Officially Over, But ER Staffing Shortage Persists
Zero Applicants at 48 Training Hospitals

"Only Five Days of Work Per Month, Net Monthly Salary of 24 Million Won"

While these conditions may sound unrealistic to most office workers, there is one field where not a single applicant has come forward despite such terms: emergency medicine specialists. Although the 20-month-long conflict between the government and medical professionals officially ended with the return of resident doctors, the shortage of emergency medicine personnel continues to worsen.

Medical staff are moving inside a large hospital in Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News.

According to the Korean Society of Emergency Medicine on January 28, only 106 applicants applied for 160 available positions in the 2026 emergency medicine residency program, resulting in a 66% application rate.

While the number of applicants remained around 600 in 2022 (618) and 2023 (608), it dropped by half to 325 last year. This year, the figure decreased even further, reaching only about one-third of last year's level.

The situation for fellows is even more serious. An emergency survey of training hospitals nationwide found that, among the 57 hospitals that responded, 48 hospitals-accounting for 84%-reported having zero new fellow applicants.

One general hospital even offered an unprecedented package: five working days per month and a pre-tax salary of 34 million won (24 million won after tax). This translates to hundreds of millions of won annually, or 4.8 million won per day. However, even this extraordinary job posting has remained vacant for several months.

As a solution to the shortage of specialists, the Korean Society of Emergency Medicine proposed expanding the fellowship training subsidies currently provided to obstetrics & gynecology and pediatrics to include emergency medicine. The society also argued for legal immunity from medical accidents related to critical emergency care. In addition, it suggested a "Korean-style integrated emergency medical system" that restructures medical institution networks based on disease and function, rather than by region or administrative district.