SEOUL, Nov. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — A consultative body involving the ruling People Power Party (PPP), the government and doctors’ groups was launched on Monday to seek to resolve a prolonged walkout by trainee doctors, with the aim of producing “meaningful” results by late December, a PPP lawmaker said. Thousands of trainee doctors have left [...]
SEJONG, Oct. 24 (Korea Bizwire) – The health ministry said Thursday it has selected eight institutions to launch a program in which general hospitals will focus more on treating critical patients while referring those with mild symptoms to local hospitals. Through the program, the government aims to have critically ill cases take up 70 percent [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 22 (Korea Bizwire) – As tensions between the medical community and the government continue to simmer, an increasing number of South Korean doctors are exploring opportunities abroad, signaling a potential brain drain in the nation’s healthcare sector. On October 19, a healthcare consulting company held an information session for Tokushukai Group, Japan’s largest medical [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong said Thursday that the government is ready for talks with doctors if they propose a debate on medical reform. Cho made the remarks after a debate between the government and medical professors at Seoul National University (SNU) last week, focusing on the medical reform aimed [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 10 (Korea Bizwire) – Seven months after the South Korean government launched a pilot program to clarify nurses’ responsibilities, about 30% of nurses still report feeling anxious due to ambiguous job scopes, according to a recent survey. Representative Kang Sun-woo of the Democratic Party of Korea revealed these findings on October 9, based on [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 4 (Korea Bizwire) – Public medical institutions in South Korea are grappling with an increasingly severe shortage of doctors, a chronic issue that has pushed salaries to unprecedented levels. In a striking example last year, a public medical center in South Jeolla Province hired an orthopedic surgeon for an annual salary of 620 million [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo said Friday that the government would have a “more open attitude” as he renewed calls for doctors to join talks to resolve a prolonged walkout by trainee doctors against the government’s medical reform. For about seven months, thousands of junior doctors have walked [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 25 (Korea Bizwire) – As the South Korean government moves to address medical shortages by allowing foreign-licensed doctors to practice, new data reveals that only 54.5% of foreign medical school graduates passed a key qualifying exam, raising concerns about the quality of care such a policy might introduce. The preliminary examination for medical licenses, [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — Prime Minister Han Duck-soo on Thursday strongly denounced a “blacklist” of emergency room doctors drawn up to name and shame those not participating in the walkout by junior doctors, vowing to take stern action against those responsible. The list contains personal information and malicious comments about emergency room physicians [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of cancer surgeries decreased significantly in the first five months after a junior doctors’ strike began in February, data from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) showed Monday. Between February and June, the number of patients who underwent cancer surgeries at upper-class general hospitals nationwide [...]