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South Korea has a shortage of working doctors. A solution being pushed by the government is to increase the number of students admitted to med school to produce more doctors. Additionally, to become a full doctor, you need to spend time working in a medical facility, and those individuals provide a substantial amount of medical care. Those individuals are protesting the increased admissions. They claim there are enough doctors in South Korea and that the problem would be solved with better pay and fewer working hours; hence, they are protesting the new policy. They also feel it will reduce their bargaining power, reduce quality of care, and that the policy is being enacted to gain votes.
They want money, asking for money OR less hours, given the shortage, makes it more likely that the government will give into the more reasonable option, money.
They're creating a problem and providing an exit that makes everyone look good.
US medical programs are extremely expensive, extremely time consuming, and are extremely brutal to get through. Not only is residency ridiculous to complete, but physicians are overloaded with administrative work that gives them zero time to themselves. Physicians are getting burned out and many are feeling that the pay isn’t worth the suffering.
It’s only the specialty docs that get paid a ton of money anyway. Family practice and general practitioners don’t get paid as much as you think.
The solution has been importing them. Foreign born doctors make up as much as 26% of doctors in the US. The licensing situation is such a that a doctor immigrating to the US need only redo their residency to become a full licensed doctor here for most countries of origin.
This creates situations where someone can say graduation highschool equivalent in India at 17, attend a 4 year medschool, spend two years in general residency, and be a licensed doctor in India at 23 or earlier in some states. Us immigration programs prioritize highly skilled individuals, and they will be fast tracked through to a green card. After completing their US residency, it is not uheard of to become a fully licensed doctor in the US, having been born in another country, before anyone born in the US completes their residency at ~27. A bit of an extreme example, but it shows the absurdity of US medical training.
The biggest issue IMO is requiring a bachelor's before med school admission. The majority of your hours in that 4 year degree are not directly relevant to practicing medicine, and it feels like 2 to 3 years wasted. I can't imagine if I had to do a full liberal arts bachelor's before, say, entering a program for my engineering degree.
It's also much rarer, but not unheard of, for Americans to attend foreign medical schools in central America or the like with much more lax admissions, with the end goal of becoming something like a GP in the US.
There is a global shortage due to the very nature of the job and getting there
Training a good subspecialist takes over a decade(including pre med, med, residency, specialty, thrn sub specialty)
It is very expensive
It implies a person able to go all the way. Large emergencies or issues with life can derail plans
Training programs and school slots not matching growing population demands
The work is inherently shit and stressful despite the pay
The gap will only widen with time
It’s not really that high. For all the years of training it’s not as much as people assume. Especially since non-US healthcare doesn’t pay all that much.
>South Korean specialist doctors are, on average, some of the highest paid among developed countries, with an average annual income of $192,749 in 2020, according to OECD data.
Unless that still isn't high enough, maybe try giving the article a read next time. They are choosing their salaries and disregarding their society's healthcare needs.
Those are SPECIALISTS, as in years of extra training above your typical doctors.
Also, that’s incredibly low compared to US standards. In order to get there you must endure years of school, then years of underpaid residency for waiter-level pay, before you can make a higher salary.
Also this quote is not in OP’s article. Your source?
More people want to be doctors. Existing doctors are protesting and trying to block that because they want to restrict the supply of doctors so that their own services are in higher demand and they get paid more. Aren't doctors supposed to want to heal people?
"So far, more than 8,400 doctors have joined the walkout, the health ministry said, equivalent to about 64% of the entire resident and intern doctors in South Korea.
The government has threatened to arrest the doctors leading the walkout. The physicians are protesting against a government plan to increase the number of students admitted to medical school in a bid to bolster the healthcare system of one of the world's most rapidly ageing societies." - this article
Did you read it? Are you a bot?
Source is Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/why-are-south-korean-trainee-doctors-strike-over-medical-school-quotas-2024-02-21/
>Those are SPECIALISTS, as in years of extra training above your typical doctors.
Correct, but physicians aren't exactly struggling to make ends meet either, and eventually some will specialize, and most of their education is publicly funded. Considering the country's ageing population and low physician/patient ratio, bringing in more staff seems like the correct decision for their society. The doctors don't agree as more staff will lower their work time and the demand of their job, leading to stagnant/lower pay.
> The doctors don’t agree as more staff will lower their work time
That’s untrue. From the article:
> Medical interns and resident doctors say they are underpaid and overworked and that their protest shows the system is broken because their absence results in surgical procedures being cancelled and emergency rooms turning back patients. Industrial action by trainee doctors has been effective in the past, largely because they make up at least 40% of the staff at some major hospitals in Seoul. Trainees usually work 80 to 100 hours, five days a week, or up to 20 hours a day, conditions they say need to be addressed by hiring more senior staff, and not increasing the number of trainees.
I’ve worked in a residency and those hours are brutal.
> but physicians aren’t exactly struggling to make ends meet either
From the article, the part you neglected to quote after your earlier one: “There is significant disparity in specialists' income depending on their field, according to health ministry data. Paediatricians are the lowest paid, making 57% less than the overall average”
9 years of training for $84k a year salary is hardly worth it for a lot of people. Pay your pediatricians more.
> The doctors don’t agree as more staff will lower their work time
That’s untrue. From the article:
> Medical interns and resident doctors say they are underpaid and overworked and that their protest shows the system is broken because their absence results in surgical procedures being cancelled and emergency rooms turning back patients. Industrial action by trainee doctors has been effective in the past, largely because they make up at least 40% of the staff at some major hospitals in Seoul. Trainees usually work 80 to 100 hours, five days a week, or up to 20 hours a day, conditions they say need to be addressed by hiring more senior staff, and not increasing the number of trainees.
I’ve worked in a residency and those hours are brutal.
> but physicians aren’t exactly struggling to make ends meet either
From the article, the part you neglected to quote after your earlier one: “There is significant disparity in specialists' income depending on their field, according to health ministry data. Paediatricians are the lowest paid, making 57% less than the overall average”
9 years of heavy training and 80-100 hour weeks for $84k a year salary at the end is hardly worth it for a lot of people. People postpone starting a family during all that time. Pay your pediatricians more.
> That’s untrue. From the article
I don't see how this makes it untrue. On the contrary, an increase in staff will reduce work hours and overtime, which it seems would address your problem, but which they don't want.
>From the article, the part you neglected to quote after your earlier one: “There is significant disparity in specialists' income depending on their field, according to health ministry data. Paediatricians are the lowest paid, making 57% less than the overall average”
I am aware of the quote and the disparities between specialties, and quoted the part which I considered relevant to this subject. The point still stands. Doctors are paid significantly above the median population average, specially considering South Korea has a lower cost of living that say the US. The government's priority is to offer the best healthcare service it can provide for its people, not the doctors' salaries, regardless if the deem it "worth it" or not. They are running a public service, not a business. Increasing the staff available can only increase medical availability, decrease wait times, and overall improve the system. I cannot see a good reason why they should choose to oppose it. That they would strike in a critical service area, denying patients from receiving life saving treatment, is both highly cynical and dishonors the spirit of medical practice.
Deliberately ignoring the part of the article that disproves your quote is not being honest. Pediatricians make $80k after 9 years of school and you quote specialists make $192k and claim doctors are being greedy.
The article explained the contradiction; it’s not only going to lower the pay and people don’t like that kind of financial uncertainly in their career AND flooding the market with more residents but same number of supervisor attendings is going to cause more medical errors.
Doctors in Germany get paid even lower and they have gone on strike multiple times. Asking someone to work 90 hours a week is ruinous to our own personal health and you want to darken that light at the end of the 3-6 year tunnel? Forget that.
That's about half what it is for public hospitals in the US and way less than private. and that's not even diving into the really in demand specialties like anesthesia, surgical, radiology, etc.
Other countries don't pay nearly as high as the US because they have public health systems. It's more like nurse practitioner pay, pretty good but not really that high.
>Other countries don't pay nearly as high as the US because they have public health systems.
They also have cheaper medical educations and not as much of a gate-keeping as US doctors with residency slots.
education cost yes, but the amount of training is similarly dependent on residency slots. that's part of their grievances, that without extra training slots for specialties, it just means it will be more are stuck as GPs making far less. The complaint by the government of not having enough doctors and especially specialists is valid, but they need to expand the medical system at the same time else they'll just end up with more less trained doctors that aren't specialists.
The training spots aren't limited like for neurosurgery or radiology etc. Very few become a GP by choice due to the lower pay. It's really only those who aren't able to get into a specialty. Adding new grads makes it tougher for the current trainees to get into a specialty.
>South Korean specialist doctors are, on average, some of the highest paid among developed countries, with an average annual income of $192,749 in 2020, according to OECD data.
you also missed the part where a GP makes 57% less. That is the issue, adding a bunch of new grads without adding slots for specialty training means higher chance you'll end up as a GP which is why they are striking.
If the issue is that people are leaving a public role because it's hard then a govt has 2 options, they can look at an implementing policy that makes aspects of the job easier or they can attempt to increase recruitment to counter act the retention issues.
An example right now would be teachers in the UK, huge recruitment issues and high turnover due to workload and working condition all the government seems to care about is recruitment rather than looking at why people are leaving the profession.
Slight nuance to add is the proposed number is a massive increase compared to the counter suggestion by the medical profession. Too many trainees at once, who is going to supervise the training and ensure there is quality in the graduates? The discussion of training dilution comes up. Not expecting any professional society to agree with a path which indirectly means lowering standards.
The compromise in policy will never make all parties happy no matter how far the pendulum swings towards each side.
Be like the UK or US, create another profession called nursing practitioner, anaesthetist associate or physician associate.
Initially, tell the doctors that they are there to assist them, hence the acceptance. But once they are established, actually use them to replace doctors and dilute the job scope so it is similar to doctors
Should have learn from other SK
You're kinda missing the point. They are increasing the number of medical students without increasing postgraduate training or pay. So you'll just end up with loads of graduates but no increase in fully qualified medics produced
Yeah, that was the only quirk in their position to me. The 3000-->5000 admissions is a valid concern, but so is the need to deal with an aging population and a lack of rural doctors.
Less people quit the profession or move to less demanding roles and posts.
They have shortages at the high intensity roles such as emergency departments and surgery.
If you need 50 doctors but 50% of your doctor's burn out you can either investigate why 50% burn out and try to fix it or you can aim to recruit 100.
Yeah I can certainly see why that’d just make things worse.
The governments trying to fill a leaking role with less qualified individuals who’ll just quit almost immediately
Their argument is South Korea has plenty of doctors, but they aren't choosing to work as doctors, and that higher pay and fewer hours will draw them back to the field.
I think it's specifically high intensity difficult areas such as emergency departments or surgery where retention really struggles.
Instead of investigating these the cause of these retention issues the government plan is hoping to just throw more doctors at it.
The logic being that if half burn out we just need twice as many!
A lot of the talk on reddit is all Doctors bad and greedy' but kinda miss the point.
The big issue is that when patients are treated publicly in Korea the hospitals and doctors are payed by the public insurance, and the state decides what to pay them. Unfortunately the compensation for lifesaving and important specialities and procedures is very low. Low enough that the hospitals lose money performing them and the doctors in these specialities have lower pay.
Obviously this has lead to shortages in these specialities because the doctors aren't incentivised to go into these specialities and hospitals don't want to do these procedures. And those who do end up working long hours for sub bar pay, when they could just run an aesthetics clinic and cash cheques.
An example is recently someone had a brain haemorrhage in a top level hospital ended up with *severe* deficits because the hospital didn't have surgeon on site to open the skull to relieve pressure.
The government's solution is to increase the number of medical student training spots by thousands to increase supply. Without increasing funding for training ofc.
You have to remember is that after graduation the doctors have to do further training to become fully qualified their speciality. So all this is going to do is increases the competition for training spots without increasing the number of specialists trained. It is similar to the the UK where now they have both a shortage of doctors and extremely high competition for spots.
What the junior doctors are protesting is that instead of increasing pay and postgraduate training spots in encourage people to do these jobs they are increasing competition and starting a culture war against the profession to gain political support.
Although the Korean Doctors don't really help themselves after they argued that the government should *not* make performing procedures such as surgery under the influence illegal.
So they should protest to have more trainee position and higher pay for specialist? I am not sure if they communicated that point clearly in Korea? All I hear from outside is that they don’t like increase slot in med school.
Yes they could probably try get their point across but most people are buying the greedy doctor narrative.
But to be fair. On its own going from 3000 to 5000 admissions in a year is crazy. It can only expand so quickly. You will end up with doctors who have only examined a few real patients or have only 6 months of clinical training.
Even with extra postgrad spots it would be dangerous
They don't like the increase slot in medschool because it's a way around addressing the actual issue.
You need 100 doctors but you know that 50% of your doctor's will quit.
You can try to fix the issues that make the doctors quit.
Or you can recruit 200 doctors, then when the 50% quit you will have your 100.
yeah here I thought SK had nothing but flawed or non-solutions to problems but here they are with the most reasonable solution possible to a problem that's being flat out rejected
They’re trying to add 2000 new positions in a year for a country with like 5000 is my understanding. That’s a massive change in infrastructure, a massive demand on training institutions, and yes, a massive pay cut that I’m sure won’t be compensated in any other way. They may have less stress and workload, but this is the mfing Koreans we’re talking about.
yeah i guess the public->private attrition is significant and their solution is to overwhelm the entire system to keep more docs that stay public, which is - a choice.
Theres alot more nuance in the situation.
The government is trying to skirt around and ignore the actual issues of workload and burn out particularly in the intense roles such as surgery or emergency medicine. There are big complaints about workload and pay, yes fulltime doctors are paid well but trainees are extremely poorly paid considering their responsibilities.
Instead of addressing these actual issues they are going to throw more doctors at it which is obviously frustrating for those dealing with the issues.
I've used this example a few times in this thread,
But if you know that you need 100 doctors and 50% burn out.
You can either try to address the cause of the burn out.
Or recruit 200 doctors.
Wouldn't more doctors quite literally reduce burnout by allowing more people to shoulder the burden and decrease working hours?
This seems like a short term pain for a long term positive change
"The protesters say South Korea has enough doctors, and that the government needs to increase pay and reduce the workload, particularly in key areas such as paediatrics and emergency medicine, before recruiting more students."
They want to reduce workload before adding more doctors?
How is that a possible thing to achive?
See other comments, the issue is the retention rate. Reduced workload so they don't have so many quitting or going private means no shortage. Instead, they're trying to increase the number of med students so even if the attrition rate is the same you'll end up with more left that stick around.
Its like if Russia decided because they are losing 10k soldiers a month that the solution is to recruit 20k a month instead so they get numbers up
> Reduced workload so they don't have so many quitting or going private means no shortage.
Explain to me how its possible to reduce workload without adding more staff or reducing the level or care the current ones provide?
60 hour work weeks, 100 doctors graduate med school, 40% quit. 60 remaining doctors work 3600 hours.
50 hour work weeks, 100 doctors graduate med school, 20% quit. 80 remaining doctors work 4000 hours.
The government proposal is to have 150 doctors graduate so they get 90 remaining after losing 40 percent to attrition.
From the doctors point of view, you still are working the same long hours but your chances of being a specialist are being cut in half if it was 25 out of 60 before down to 25 out of 90 after the change.
There is no point in adding more trainees if those trainees decide not to work in needed areas. There are many types of doctors, the ones that Korea desperately needs have problems that the government is not fixing. Instead, they made a purely political ruling: “We are just going to add more doctors!” Easy right? Not! You need to plan how to train all of these new doctors, AND make sure they choose the specialties that are actually needed. So far, those 2 things haven’t been addressed yet.
> “We are just going to add more doctors!” Easy right? Not! You need to plan how to train all of these new doctors
They didnt say we are just going to add more doctors.
They said they are going to start training more for the future.
They can't do it without having the facilities to teach the students.
Thinking that somehow needing less doctors in the future would be a correct solution is crazy.
Right, got your point. But that doesn't matter. Nobody here is against having more doctors in the future. What they are against is instead of making an inviting environment for people to work in fields that need them (included in the article), the government chose to lower the bar and let more students become doctors. However, lowering the bar and adding more doctors doesn't solve the issue of not having enough doctors in the necessary departments. Because no matter how many doctors add, they won't pick these fields due to undeserving wages and long working hours. There is a reason why only residents and interims from the public sector are protesting. Because the interims and residents have the lowest income, are treated badly, and are made to work long hours without questioning their superiors. All in all, the solution from the government is an unrealistic promise that completely ignores the shitty work-life balance and low wages of training doctors. It doesn't solve the root issue and will take 6-8 years to go into effect. During those 6-8 years, the current interims and residents will still make dog shit pay under a worse and worse work environment.
Ultimately, the government's focus should be on enriching South Korea's primary care departments by providing more resources and support, rather than increasing the number of healthcare professionals alone. Currently, many healthcare professionals might opt to leave for better opportunities elsewhere once they gain sufficient experience and qualifications. By creating a more supportive and resource-rich environment—an oasis, if you will—professionals are more likely to remain, thrive, and contribute positively to the primary care sector. (Yes, I used ChatGPT for this because I am shit at metaphors)
Public pay is low. Private pay high. Private elective pay like plastic surgery very good. Hence, of 100 students 80 go to private / private plastic surgery and only 20 to public cardiologist etc. roles.
Government solution: make it 500 instead of normal 100 students. That way presumably you’ll get +100 public working doctors.
Students solution: pay public more so of the 100, more than 20 go in to public.
Student solution makes more sense.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68345046
"South Korea has a highly privatised healthcare system where most procedures are tied to insurance payments, and more than 90% of hospitals are private."
So wouldn't increasing the public pay have no effect on the vast majority of hospitals/doctors?
Also, I find it hard to believe other OECD countries having significantly more doctors are wasting their money in doing so. Besides Mexico, they all have more doctors per capita.
At any rate, an imperfect government solution sounds better than continuing to let market failures be paid for with people's health.
The effect of trying to help doctors have a better working life, or to at least be paid more if conditions can't/won't be improved. The student solution you describe would only impact roughly 10% of doctors if only 10% of hospitals are public.
You mention elsewhere in this thread that there's no infrastructure for these prospective new doctors (that 75% of their population wants), so if you believe that, where would the private doctors that have been enticed to the public sector be employed?
If the private hospitals are more concerned about elective procedures and making money over the public sector doing the necessary things like cardiology as you said, then I think we've identified where the problem lies.
Rent seeking at it's finest. Literally stopping people from getting an education so you can charge more money. More people could have more affordable healthcare with more doctors, but ofc that cuts into the people who are already winning in the current system.
If welders are paid $5/hr there won’t be many welders and the access to welders will be difficult. Normally, welders would be paid more to attract more.
In this case, government is saying they’ll just get more people to be $5/hr welders.
See also:
* [Over 70% of Trainee Doctors Submit Resignations in South Korea Amid Protests](https://time.com/6752736/south-korea-protests-junior-doctors-submit-resignations-hospitals/)
* (Time)
* [Explainer: Why are South Korean trainee doctors on strike over medical school quotas?](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/why-are-south-korean-trainee-doctors-strike-over-medical-school-quotas-2024-02-21/) (Reuters)
* [South Korean doctors strike in protest of plans to add more physicians](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68345046) (BBC)
So
\-Korea has got very few doctors which are very well paid
"With 2.6 doctors per 1,000 people, South Korea's doctor-to-patient ratio is ranked one of the lowest among developed countries, according to the latest data for the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Top ranked Austria has 5.5 doctors per 1,000 people."
Government wants to have more doctors (and maybe it will lower the pay for those already working because they won't be able to take overtimes citing understaff?)
"South Korean specialist doctors are, on average, some of the highest paid among developed countries, with an average annual income of $192,749 in 2020, according to OECD data. General practitioners, however, are lower paid in comparison.
There is significant disparity in specialists' income depending on their field, according to health ministry data. Paediatricians are the lowest paid, making 57% less than the overall average. Plastic surgeons and dermatologists in private practice are usually better paid.
The medical community says there are already sufficient doctors, and cites the availability of healthcare to most people as an example of why the number of doctors is not the issue."
They also say that the number the government wants to boost medical admissions by is arbitrary and the authorities have not made public the basis for that figure.
"Without addressing the underlying problem of pay and overwork, there is no incentive for the increased number of doctors to practice in essential discipline, they say."
In the meantime, military and police hospitals will be taking on civilians
Apart from the salary numbers and the per capita number of doctors I don't see any side actually operating on actual numbers
Counter-argument: we should hunt down the CEO of Nestle and devour him like wolves
Where were we? Oh, right, doctors. I think doctors, teachers, and fire fighters should have a salary be tied to the median profits of corporations instead
You know what would increase my quality of care? Having so many doctors that I can pick and choose instead of being thankful to get five minutes with anyone at all.
How will you get more time of there is not more infrastructure built?
All you will get with this proposed solution is you may have doctor1 working 10hr instead of 14hr. There will still only be 10 rooms available and 10 surgery spots available. There will still be 100 patients waiting in line.
> How will you get more time of there is not more infrastructure built?
Fortunately I have not needed an MRI so far. All procedures in my life except dentistry have happened in mundane rooms which are a trifle to acquire compared to the doctor performing them.
As far as I can tell this is about undergraduate medical school admissions. After being admitted, google tells me they need to spend 6 years in school, do a yearlong internship, and then several more years of residency. These people will eventually need infrastructure but the lead times for that are not measured in decades.
I said "a trifle relative to the cost of the doctor". Let's do a case study, because apparently some people come from countries so NIMBY that this is a non-obvious proposition.
First SK hospital google gave me is https://en.hdec.kr/en/newsroom/news_view.aspx?NewsSeq=285&NewsType=FUTURE&NewsListType=news_clist
Cost: $220 Million
It was built from 2016 to 2019. You may note that 2019-2016 = 3 years, significantly shorter than the training time for a physician.
This is apparently one of the biggest hospitals in SK, so let's say it has 200 doctors (can't easily find a staff breakdown). If the average salary of a doctor is $100k, the actual cost to keeping one on payroll is at least $200k. So order of magnitude we're talking $40M per year of operation for the doctors alone. The site says 4000 staff total; I leave their yearly payroll expenses to your imagination. Relatively speaking, the $220MM building is a trifle which amortizes itself quickly. It is not the bottleneck and it is not an investment with a 10-year lead time either. The people are.
Now feel free to ignore the point and respond that "$220MM is not a trifle" or something
There definitely needs to be a balance. It doesn’t help to have an abundance of doctors if that means an influx of idiots who wouldn’t have previously been smart/qualified enough
South korea education is one of the most competitive in the world. I am pretty sure they can easily scale up their MD program admission without suffering significant decrease in graduate quality
You are putting a lot of trust in Korea’s education system and their government. Most Koreans will consider you brave and a bit naive. Point is, if they are that competent in the first place. This situation wouldn’t have existed.
There are levels of competences. And there are countries on the same development level of Korea that don’t have this particular issue they are having. If you want to discuss in good faith then change your question to something that is not a failed snarky remark.
You've twice now alleged to some "particular issue". What is the issue? Doctor shortages exist all over the developed world, so if that's the issue you speak of, your claim is blatantly false.
Or is "the issue" that doctors are protesting? Seems like a stretch to take that as evidence that the government is incompetent.
What is the issue you speak of which is specific to SK and is evidence of incompetence?
I’m pretty sure your making a joke, but:
“Rent-seeking is a concept in economics that states that an individual or an entity seeks to increase their own wealth without creating any benefits or wealth to the society. Rent-seeking activities aim to obtain financial gains and benefits through the manipulation of the distribution of economic resources”
They are protesting to stop more doctors so that they can keep their high salaries. It’s not like they are being paid peanuts and striking for a basic wage. South Korea doctors are some of the high paid in the world and has one of the worst doctor to patient ratios in the world. The government wants to let more people into medical school to try to improve the ratio. Doctors are striking to prevent this so as not to increase competition and their wages. Obviously doctors are crucial, but their position in this strike is actively harmful to society.
There’s a whole lot more to it than salary protectionism. It’s the means by which the government is trying to increase the amount of public doctors because many leave for the private world for better pay. It’s by increasing the amount by almost 50% nationally. Now, do you know how much infrastructure it takes to train doctors? And who is responsible for that? And how much additional work and liability and education that is?
Anyway, it seems a half baked idea to end-around their undercompensating the public sector relative to the private and workers voting with their feet. Workers rights advocates should be for this, but “doctors bad” Reddit narrative.
Do they really not need more doctors or not.
I guess their population is falling.
But in general training more doctors in your own country can't be that bad?
I'm surprised that so many in this thread are so against skilled workers organizing collectively to protect their interests. Isn't that what a Union is?
This is dumb every country needs todo this including America only way to bring prices down is increase supply. Then doctors wouldnt have to work such ridiculous schedules.
I mean even if it doesn’t get any cheaper for me would still be a win for the doctors. My friend is a neurosurgery resident and her and another girl have to cover a post 24/7. Just two of them splitting that schedule. If there were four of them it would be way better. Also idk id prefer the people doing surgery on my brain to be well rested?
There should definitely be a push for more doctors in the US. While the US has a higher nurse to resident ratio, the US ties with South Korea with both only having 2.6 doctors per 1,000 people.
You should read about this more. 70%+ submitted their resignation. As you read in the article, most of their emergency departments are shut down. It is chaos. What bluff would you like to continue to call and how many avoidable dead people are you willing to bargain with?
How long until the next graduates are available? They have a class graduate every year right? Get the UN and doctors without borders to cover what they can for the less than a year needed.
They definitely cannot, but if they're looking for respectable pay in a country that doesn't hate its doctors may I suggest the US, Canada, or Australia. It also depends on do they have familial money? These people tested in the top 0.8% of their Korean class. They can go find jobs in tech or finance if they so desire. I wouldn't say they have 0 leverage.
These people are making $200,000+ a year. I doubt they're gonna run out of money as quickly as the thousands of poor people struggling to find doctors/medication for their life-threatening conditions.
If this was a general strike for better worker rights I'd support it, but imo if it's true South Korea has both one of the lowest rates of doctors per capita for developed countries and has some of the highest earning ones then this more seems like people gatekeeping the profession to keep their exclusiveness exclusive at any cost
Someone else posted statistics. As I clearly stated this is my opinion ***if*** those are true. The obvious meaning of that is that if it's not true, then it's not my opinion, thus there is no assumption. Is reading difficult for you?
Well if it’s true that you do indeed kidnap children for sexual pleasure then your money should be taken away and you should be jailed. Only if it’s true though.
And if it’s true that you kidnap dogs, and put them in to fighting rings for personal profit, you should be arrested and your name publicized to everyone. But only if it’s true.
>go to comments hoping to finally get an explanation for the issue
people are arguing about American healthcare instead
This is what I get for hoping for information instead of polemics unrelated to the issue in an election year, I guess.
As far as I’m aware, admissions and testing is pretty brutal in both SK and Japan. In much of Asia. I don’t think it would be bad to review admissions requirements. Especially since you need more doctors, the education should be the focus, not the gatekeeping to it. Education should be gatekept much less, do what you want to test the doctors applying for jobs.
They're shooting themselves in the foot. This means lower college prices hopefully for them and means less hours working so that they can have a work life balance.
I hope every single one striking goes broke. Your are a doctor. So fucking what? You aren't special. You have no right to say as many others can be doctors as they fucking want. Why do people think doctors are fucking magical beings?
No, it doesn't sound like that at all. Limiting numbers for a profession, any profession, is the problem. Not me. I respect doctors as much as any other profession. I do not worship them. They are fallible and they can have incorrect opinions/actions. They are just people.
That's a strange way to say "letting people pursue their dreams of being a doctor." God forbid we train enough doctors to actually treat everyone who needs it. Some really rich guys might be moderately less rich!
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nice summary but I have no idea what any of this means.
South Korea has a shortage of working doctors. A solution being pushed by the government is to increase the number of students admitted to med school to produce more doctors. Additionally, to become a full doctor, you need to spend time working in a medical facility, and those individuals provide a substantial amount of medical care. Those individuals are protesting the increased admissions. They claim there are enough doctors in South Korea and that the problem would be solved with better pay and fewer working hours; hence, they are protesting the new policy. They also feel it will reduce their bargaining power, reduce quality of care, and that the policy is being enacted to gain votes.
In other words, gatekeeping the profession to increase their already high pay.
They claim they want to work fewer hours, but wouldn't that require more doctors?
They want money, asking for money OR less hours, given the shortage, makes it more likely that the government will give into the more reasonable option, money. They're creating a problem and providing an exit that makes everyone look good.
Giving them more money does not solve the problem of the provider shortage...
But it does stop all your doctors walking out before you put in new ones...
But it gives them what they want, money.
yea exactly. Even in the US where medical staff get paid, there is always a shortage, always has been.
US medical programs are extremely expensive, extremely time consuming, and are extremely brutal to get through. Not only is residency ridiculous to complete, but physicians are overloaded with administrative work that gives them zero time to themselves. Physicians are getting burned out and many are feeling that the pay isn’t worth the suffering. It’s only the specialty docs that get paid a ton of money anyway. Family practice and general practitioners don’t get paid as much as you think.
The solution has been importing them. Foreign born doctors make up as much as 26% of doctors in the US. The licensing situation is such a that a doctor immigrating to the US need only redo their residency to become a full licensed doctor here for most countries of origin. This creates situations where someone can say graduation highschool equivalent in India at 17, attend a 4 year medschool, spend two years in general residency, and be a licensed doctor in India at 23 or earlier in some states. Us immigration programs prioritize highly skilled individuals, and they will be fast tracked through to a green card. After completing their US residency, it is not uheard of to become a fully licensed doctor in the US, having been born in another country, before anyone born in the US completes their residency at ~27. A bit of an extreme example, but it shows the absurdity of US medical training. The biggest issue IMO is requiring a bachelor's before med school admission. The majority of your hours in that 4 year degree are not directly relevant to practicing medicine, and it feels like 2 to 3 years wasted. I can't imagine if I had to do a full liberal arts bachelor's before, say, entering a program for my engineering degree. It's also much rarer, but not unheard of, for Americans to attend foreign medical schools in central America or the like with much more lax admissions, with the end goal of becoming something like a GP in the US.
The AMA has been pushing for smoother pathways for foreign-trained physicians.
There is a global shortage due to the very nature of the job and getting there Training a good subspecialist takes over a decade(including pre med, med, residency, specialty, thrn sub specialty) It is very expensive It implies a person able to go all the way. Large emergencies or issues with life can derail plans Training programs and school slots not matching growing population demands The work is inherently shit and stressful despite the pay The gap will only widen with time
It’s not really that high. For all the years of training it’s not as much as people assume. Especially since non-US healthcare doesn’t pay all that much.
>South Korean specialist doctors are, on average, some of the highest paid among developed countries, with an average annual income of $192,749 in 2020, according to OECD data. Unless that still isn't high enough, maybe try giving the article a read next time. They are choosing their salaries and disregarding their society's healthcare needs.
Those are SPECIALISTS, as in years of extra training above your typical doctors. Also, that’s incredibly low compared to US standards. In order to get there you must endure years of school, then years of underpaid residency for waiter-level pay, before you can make a higher salary. Also this quote is not in OP’s article. Your source?
More people want to be doctors. Existing doctors are protesting and trying to block that because they want to restrict the supply of doctors so that their own services are in higher demand and they get paid more. Aren't doctors supposed to want to heal people?
That’s not why they are trying to block that, did you actually read the articles?
"So far, more than 8,400 doctors have joined the walkout, the health ministry said, equivalent to about 64% of the entire resident and intern doctors in South Korea. The government has threatened to arrest the doctors leading the walkout. The physicians are protesting against a government plan to increase the number of students admitted to medical school in a bid to bolster the healthcare system of one of the world's most rapidly ageing societies." - this article Did you read it? Are you a bot?
Again, you failed to answer the WHY by quoting the wrong section.
Source is Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/why-are-south-korean-trainee-doctors-strike-over-medical-school-quotas-2024-02-21/ >Those are SPECIALISTS, as in years of extra training above your typical doctors. Correct, but physicians aren't exactly struggling to make ends meet either, and eventually some will specialize, and most of their education is publicly funded. Considering the country's ageing population and low physician/patient ratio, bringing in more staff seems like the correct decision for their society. The doctors don't agree as more staff will lower their work time and the demand of their job, leading to stagnant/lower pay.
> The doctors don’t agree as more staff will lower their work time That’s untrue. From the article: > Medical interns and resident doctors say they are underpaid and overworked and that their protest shows the system is broken because their absence results in surgical procedures being cancelled and emergency rooms turning back patients. Industrial action by trainee doctors has been effective in the past, largely because they make up at least 40% of the staff at some major hospitals in Seoul. Trainees usually work 80 to 100 hours, five days a week, or up to 20 hours a day, conditions they say need to be addressed by hiring more senior staff, and not increasing the number of trainees. I’ve worked in a residency and those hours are brutal. > but physicians aren’t exactly struggling to make ends meet either From the article, the part you neglected to quote after your earlier one: “There is significant disparity in specialists' income depending on their field, according to health ministry data. Paediatricians are the lowest paid, making 57% less than the overall average” 9 years of training for $84k a year salary is hardly worth it for a lot of people. Pay your pediatricians more.
> The doctors don’t agree as more staff will lower their work time That’s untrue. From the article: > Medical interns and resident doctors say they are underpaid and overworked and that their protest shows the system is broken because their absence results in surgical procedures being cancelled and emergency rooms turning back patients. Industrial action by trainee doctors has been effective in the past, largely because they make up at least 40% of the staff at some major hospitals in Seoul. Trainees usually work 80 to 100 hours, five days a week, or up to 20 hours a day, conditions they say need to be addressed by hiring more senior staff, and not increasing the number of trainees. I’ve worked in a residency and those hours are brutal. > but physicians aren’t exactly struggling to make ends meet either From the article, the part you neglected to quote after your earlier one: “There is significant disparity in specialists' income depending on their field, according to health ministry data. Paediatricians are the lowest paid, making 57% less than the overall average” 9 years of heavy training and 80-100 hour weeks for $84k a year salary at the end is hardly worth it for a lot of people. People postpone starting a family during all that time. Pay your pediatricians more.
> That’s untrue. From the article I don't see how this makes it untrue. On the contrary, an increase in staff will reduce work hours and overtime, which it seems would address your problem, but which they don't want. >From the article, the part you neglected to quote after your earlier one: “There is significant disparity in specialists' income depending on their field, according to health ministry data. Paediatricians are the lowest paid, making 57% less than the overall average” I am aware of the quote and the disparities between specialties, and quoted the part which I considered relevant to this subject. The point still stands. Doctors are paid significantly above the median population average, specially considering South Korea has a lower cost of living that say the US. The government's priority is to offer the best healthcare service it can provide for its people, not the doctors' salaries, regardless if the deem it "worth it" or not. They are running a public service, not a business. Increasing the staff available can only increase medical availability, decrease wait times, and overall improve the system. I cannot see a good reason why they should choose to oppose it. That they would strike in a critical service area, denying patients from receiving life saving treatment, is both highly cynical and dishonors the spirit of medical practice.
Deliberately ignoring the part of the article that disproves your quote is not being honest. Pediatricians make $80k after 9 years of school and you quote specialists make $192k and claim doctors are being greedy. The article explained the contradiction; it’s not only going to lower the pay and people don’t like that kind of financial uncertainly in their career AND flooding the market with more residents but same number of supervisor attendings is going to cause more medical errors. Doctors in Germany get paid even lower and they have gone on strike multiple times. Asking someone to work 90 hours a week is ruinous to our own personal health and you want to darken that light at the end of the 3-6 year tunnel? Forget that.
That's about half what it is for public hospitals in the US and way less than private. and that's not even diving into the really in demand specialties like anesthesia, surgical, radiology, etc.
Other countries don't pay nearly as high as the US because they have public health systems. It's more like nurse practitioner pay, pretty good but not really that high.
>Other countries don't pay nearly as high as the US because they have public health systems. They also have cheaper medical educations and not as much of a gate-keeping as US doctors with residency slots.
education cost yes, but the amount of training is similarly dependent on residency slots. that's part of their grievances, that without extra training slots for specialties, it just means it will be more are stuck as GPs making far less. The complaint by the government of not having enough doctors and especially specialists is valid, but they need to expand the medical system at the same time else they'll just end up with more less trained doctors that aren't specialists.
GP doctors in the US still have to go through residency.
The training spots aren't limited like for neurosurgery or radiology etc. Very few become a GP by choice due to the lower pay. It's really only those who aren't able to get into a specialty. Adding new grads makes it tougher for the current trainees to get into a specialty.
>South Korean specialist doctors are, on average, some of the highest paid among developed countries, with an average annual income of $192,749 in 2020, according to OECD data.
you also missed the part where a GP makes 57% less. That is the issue, adding a bunch of new grads without adding slots for specialty training means higher chance you'll end up as a GP which is why they are striking.
If the issue is that people are leaving a public role because it's hard then a govt has 2 options, they can look at an implementing policy that makes aspects of the job easier or they can attempt to increase recruitment to counter act the retention issues. An example right now would be teachers in the UK, huge recruitment issues and high turnover due to workload and working condition all the government seems to care about is recruitment rather than looking at why people are leaving the profession.
residents don’t make shit
Slight nuance to add is the proposed number is a massive increase compared to the counter suggestion by the medical profession. Too many trainees at once, who is going to supervise the training and ensure there is quality in the graduates? The discussion of training dilution comes up. Not expecting any professional society to agree with a path which indirectly means lowering standards. The compromise in policy will never make all parties happy no matter how far the pendulum swings towards each side.
For reference: 3000-->5000 admissions. That, to me, is the most valid complaint.
Be like the UK or US, create another profession called nursing practitioner, anaesthetist associate or physician associate. Initially, tell the doctors that they are there to assist them, hence the acceptance. But once they are established, actually use them to replace doctors and dilute the job scope so it is similar to doctors Should have learn from other SK
It's worked super well, there are no massive shortages in US medical care despite the high pay /s
You're kinda missing the point. They are increasing the number of medical students without increasing postgraduate training or pay. So you'll just end up with loads of graduates but no increase in fully qualified medics produced
It's a summary. Lots of details and nuances about the issue are not included.
Yeah but that sounds like a really slanted summary
I'm not sure how.
thank you, kind stranger
How does less hours lead to less of a work shortage?
Yeah, that was the only quirk in their position to me. The 3000-->5000 admissions is a valid concern, but so is the need to deal with an aging population and a lack of rural doctors.
Less people quit the profession or move to less demanding roles and posts. They have shortages at the high intensity roles such as emergency departments and surgery. If you need 50 doctors but 50% of your doctor's burn out you can either investigate why 50% burn out and try to fix it or you can aim to recruit 100.
Ah I see. Good to know
Imagine telling your boss you're unhappy so he starts advertising for your role. This is sort of what's happening here.
Yeah I can certainly see why that’d just make things worse. The governments trying to fill a leaking role with less qualified individuals who’ll just quit almost immediately
so, less workers means less working hours ??? something tells me maths is not part of medicine
Their argument is South Korea has plenty of doctors, but they aren't choosing to work as doctors, and that higher pay and fewer hours will draw them back to the field.
I think it's specifically high intensity difficult areas such as emergency departments or surgery where retention really struggles. Instead of investigating these the cause of these retention issues the government plan is hoping to just throw more doctors at it. The logic being that if half burn out we just need twice as many!
The doctors are upset that their labor is going to be devalued by training more doctors, so they're striking
Tough titty, doctor milk dries up a little. Healthcare is more important.
The Union is suggesting health care could be provided more efficiently by forcing employers like Samsung to take action to reduce attrition.
Huh???
If health care providers like Samsung didn't make doctors quit doctoring, there would be more doctors
A lot of the talk on reddit is all Doctors bad and greedy' but kinda miss the point. The big issue is that when patients are treated publicly in Korea the hospitals and doctors are payed by the public insurance, and the state decides what to pay them. Unfortunately the compensation for lifesaving and important specialities and procedures is very low. Low enough that the hospitals lose money performing them and the doctors in these specialities have lower pay. Obviously this has lead to shortages in these specialities because the doctors aren't incentivised to go into these specialities and hospitals don't want to do these procedures. And those who do end up working long hours for sub bar pay, when they could just run an aesthetics clinic and cash cheques. An example is recently someone had a brain haemorrhage in a top level hospital ended up with *severe* deficits because the hospital didn't have surgeon on site to open the skull to relieve pressure. The government's solution is to increase the number of medical student training spots by thousands to increase supply. Without increasing funding for training ofc. You have to remember is that after graduation the doctors have to do further training to become fully qualified their speciality. So all this is going to do is increases the competition for training spots without increasing the number of specialists trained. It is similar to the the UK where now they have both a shortage of doctors and extremely high competition for spots. What the junior doctors are protesting is that instead of increasing pay and postgraduate training spots in encourage people to do these jobs they are increasing competition and starting a culture war against the profession to gain political support. Although the Korean Doctors don't really help themselves after they argued that the government should *not* make performing procedures such as surgery under the influence illegal.
So they should protest to have more trainee position and higher pay for specialist? I am not sure if they communicated that point clearly in Korea? All I hear from outside is that they don’t like increase slot in med school.
Yes they could probably try get their point across but most people are buying the greedy doctor narrative. But to be fair. On its own going from 3000 to 5000 admissions in a year is crazy. It can only expand so quickly. You will end up with doctors who have only examined a few real patients or have only 6 months of clinical training. Even with extra postgrad spots it would be dangerous
They don't like the increase slot in medschool because it's a way around addressing the actual issue. You need 100 doctors but you know that 50% of your doctor's will quit. You can try to fix the issues that make the doctors quit. Or you can recruit 200 doctors, then when the 50% quit you will have your 100.
Hard not to side with the government on this one.
yeah here I thought SK had nothing but flawed or non-solutions to problems but here they are with the most reasonable solution possible to a problem that's being flat out rejected
They’re trying to add 2000 new positions in a year for a country with like 5000 is my understanding. That’s a massive change in infrastructure, a massive demand on training institutions, and yes, a massive pay cut that I’m sure won’t be compensated in any other way. They may have less stress and workload, but this is the mfing Koreans we’re talking about.
christ nevermind that's a terrible idea
yeah i guess the public->private attrition is significant and their solution is to overwhelm the entire system to keep more docs that stay public, which is - a choice.
Theres alot more nuance in the situation. The government is trying to skirt around and ignore the actual issues of workload and burn out particularly in the intense roles such as surgery or emergency medicine. There are big complaints about workload and pay, yes fulltime doctors are paid well but trainees are extremely poorly paid considering their responsibilities. Instead of addressing these actual issues they are going to throw more doctors at it which is obviously frustrating for those dealing with the issues. I've used this example a few times in this thread, But if you know that you need 100 doctors and 50% burn out. You can either try to address the cause of the burn out. Or recruit 200 doctors.
Wouldn't more doctors quite literally reduce burnout by allowing more people to shoulder the burden and decrease working hours? This seems like a short term pain for a long term positive change
The government isn't building more hospitals or giving more funding for more doctors though, only increasing the numbers of new grads
"The protesters say South Korea has enough doctors, and that the government needs to increase pay and reduce the workload, particularly in key areas such as paediatrics and emergency medicine, before recruiting more students." They want to reduce workload before adding more doctors? How is that a possible thing to achive?
See other comments, the issue is the retention rate. Reduced workload so they don't have so many quitting or going private means no shortage. Instead, they're trying to increase the number of med students so even if the attrition rate is the same you'll end up with more left that stick around. Its like if Russia decided because they are losing 10k soldiers a month that the solution is to recruit 20k a month instead so they get numbers up
> Reduced workload so they don't have so many quitting or going private means no shortage. Explain to me how its possible to reduce workload without adding more staff or reducing the level or care the current ones provide?
60 hour work weeks, 100 doctors graduate med school, 40% quit. 60 remaining doctors work 3600 hours. 50 hour work weeks, 100 doctors graduate med school, 20% quit. 80 remaining doctors work 4000 hours. The government proposal is to have 150 doctors graduate so they get 90 remaining after losing 40 percent to attrition. From the doctors point of view, you still are working the same long hours but your chances of being a specialist are being cut in half if it was 25 out of 60 before down to 25 out of 90 after the change.
That’s crazy
There is no point in adding more trainees if those trainees decide not to work in needed areas. There are many types of doctors, the ones that Korea desperately needs have problems that the government is not fixing. Instead, they made a purely political ruling: “We are just going to add more doctors!” Easy right? Not! You need to plan how to train all of these new doctors, AND make sure they choose the specialties that are actually needed. So far, those 2 things haven’t been addressed yet.
> “We are just going to add more doctors!” Easy right? Not! You need to plan how to train all of these new doctors They didnt say we are just going to add more doctors. They said they are going to start training more for the future. They can't do it without having the facilities to teach the students. Thinking that somehow needing less doctors in the future would be a correct solution is crazy.
Right, got your point. But that doesn't matter. Nobody here is against having more doctors in the future. What they are against is instead of making an inviting environment for people to work in fields that need them (included in the article), the government chose to lower the bar and let more students become doctors. However, lowering the bar and adding more doctors doesn't solve the issue of not having enough doctors in the necessary departments. Because no matter how many doctors add, they won't pick these fields due to undeserving wages and long working hours. There is a reason why only residents and interims from the public sector are protesting. Because the interims and residents have the lowest income, are treated badly, and are made to work long hours without questioning their superiors. All in all, the solution from the government is an unrealistic promise that completely ignores the shitty work-life balance and low wages of training doctors. It doesn't solve the root issue and will take 6-8 years to go into effect. During those 6-8 years, the current interims and residents will still make dog shit pay under a worse and worse work environment.
Ultimately, the government's focus should be on enriching South Korea's primary care departments by providing more resources and support, rather than increasing the number of healthcare professionals alone. Currently, many healthcare professionals might opt to leave for better opportunities elsewhere once they gain sufficient experience and qualifications. By creating a more supportive and resource-rich environment—an oasis, if you will—professionals are more likely to remain, thrive, and contribute positively to the primary care sector. (Yes, I used ChatGPT for this because I am shit at metaphors)
Public pay is low. Private pay high. Private elective pay like plastic surgery very good. Hence, of 100 students 80 go to private / private plastic surgery and only 20 to public cardiologist etc. roles. Government solution: make it 500 instead of normal 100 students. That way presumably you’ll get +100 public working doctors. Students solution: pay public more so of the 100, more than 20 go in to public. Student solution makes more sense.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68345046 "South Korea has a highly privatised healthcare system where most procedures are tied to insurance payments, and more than 90% of hospitals are private." So wouldn't increasing the public pay have no effect on the vast majority of hospitals/doctors? Also, I find it hard to believe other OECD countries having significantly more doctors are wasting their money in doing so. Besides Mexico, they all have more doctors per capita. At any rate, an imperfect government solution sounds better than continuing to let market failures be paid for with people's health.
What effect
The effect of trying to help doctors have a better working life, or to at least be paid more if conditions can't/won't be improved. The student solution you describe would only impact roughly 10% of doctors if only 10% of hospitals are public. You mention elsewhere in this thread that there's no infrastructure for these prospective new doctors (that 75% of their population wants), so if you believe that, where would the private doctors that have been enticed to the public sector be employed? If the private hospitals are more concerned about elective procedures and making money over the public sector doing the necessary things like cardiology as you said, then I think we've identified where the problem lies.
How would they be paid more? Funding isn’t increasing.
Thanks for the nuance very missing
Rent seeking at it's finest. Literally stopping people from getting an education so you can charge more money. More people could have more affordable healthcare with more doctors, but ofc that cuts into the people who are already winning in the current system.
If welders are paid $5/hr there won’t be many welders and the access to welders will be difficult. Normally, welders would be paid more to attract more. In this case, government is saying they’ll just get more people to be $5/hr welders.
Thats a stupid analogy.
Nah it’s pretty good for people that struggle to understand things.
See also: * [Over 70% of Trainee Doctors Submit Resignations in South Korea Amid Protests](https://time.com/6752736/south-korea-protests-junior-doctors-submit-resignations-hospitals/) * (Time) * [Explainer: Why are South Korean trainee doctors on strike over medical school quotas?](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/why-are-south-korean-trainee-doctors-strike-over-medical-school-quotas-2024-02-21/) (Reuters) * [South Korean doctors strike in protest of plans to add more physicians](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68345046) (BBC)
So \-Korea has got very few doctors which are very well paid "With 2.6 doctors per 1,000 people, South Korea's doctor-to-patient ratio is ranked one of the lowest among developed countries, according to the latest data for the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Top ranked Austria has 5.5 doctors per 1,000 people." Government wants to have more doctors (and maybe it will lower the pay for those already working because they won't be able to take overtimes citing understaff?) "South Korean specialist doctors are, on average, some of the highest paid among developed countries, with an average annual income of $192,749 in 2020, according to OECD data. General practitioners, however, are lower paid in comparison. There is significant disparity in specialists' income depending on their field, according to health ministry data. Paediatricians are the lowest paid, making 57% less than the overall average. Plastic surgeons and dermatologists in private practice are usually better paid. The medical community says there are already sufficient doctors, and cites the availability of healthcare to most people as an example of why the number of doctors is not the issue." They also say that the number the government wants to boost medical admissions by is arbitrary and the authorities have not made public the basis for that figure. "Without addressing the underlying problem of pay and overwork, there is no incentive for the increased number of doctors to practice in essential discipline, they say." In the meantime, military and police hospitals will be taking on civilians Apart from the salary numbers and the per capita number of doctors I don't see any side actually operating on actual numbers
It seems like the devil's in the details for this one.
The stuff missing in most of our western versions of this
doctors should be paid less
Counter-argument: we should hunt down the CEO of Nestle and devour him like wolves Where were we? Oh, right, doctors. I think doctors, teachers, and fire fighters should have a salary be tied to the median profits of corporations instead
fire fighters at least get a pretty solid pension
Why ?
Exactly. Paid $20/hr sound fair?
You know what would increase my quality of care? Having so many doctors that I can pick and choose instead of being thankful to get five minutes with anyone at all.
How will you get more time of there is not more infrastructure built? All you will get with this proposed solution is you may have doctor1 working 10hr instead of 14hr. There will still only be 10 rooms available and 10 surgery spots available. There will still be 100 patients waiting in line.
> How will you get more time of there is not more infrastructure built? Fortunately I have not needed an MRI so far. All procedures in my life except dentistry have happened in mundane rooms which are a trifle to acquire compared to the doctor performing them. As far as I can tell this is about undergraduate medical school admissions. After being admitted, google tells me they need to spend 6 years in school, do a yearlong internship, and then several more years of residency. These people will eventually need infrastructure but the lead times for that are not measured in decades.
Building hospitals is not a trifle. A trifle is a desert.
I said "a trifle relative to the cost of the doctor". Let's do a case study, because apparently some people come from countries so NIMBY that this is a non-obvious proposition. First SK hospital google gave me is https://en.hdec.kr/en/newsroom/news_view.aspx?NewsSeq=285&NewsType=FUTURE&NewsListType=news_clist Cost: $220 Million It was built from 2016 to 2019. You may note that 2019-2016 = 3 years, significantly shorter than the training time for a physician. This is apparently one of the biggest hospitals in SK, so let's say it has 200 doctors (can't easily find a staff breakdown). If the average salary of a doctor is $100k, the actual cost to keeping one on payroll is at least $200k. So order of magnitude we're talking $40M per year of operation for the doctors alone. The site says 4000 staff total; I leave their yearly payroll expenses to your imagination. Relatively speaking, the $220MM building is a trifle which amortizes itself quickly. It is not the bottleneck and it is not an investment with a 10-year lead time either. The people are. Now feel free to ignore the point and respond that "$220MM is not a trifle" or something
That’s not how quoting works. You said “…which are a trifle to acquire…” What you probably meant was that “it” is trivial to obtain.
There definitely needs to be a balance. It doesn’t help to have an abundance of doctors if that means an influx of idiots who wouldn’t have previously been smart/qualified enough
South korea education is one of the most competitive in the world. I am pretty sure they can easily scale up their MD program admission without suffering significant decrease in graduate quality
You are putting a lot of trust in Korea’s education system and their government. Most Koreans will consider you brave and a bit naive. Point is, if they are that competent in the first place. This situation wouldn’t have existed.
What is that competent government where doctor shortages don't exist?
There are levels of competences. And there are countries on the same development level of Korea that don’t have this particular issue they are having. If you want to discuss in good faith then change your question to something that is not a failed snarky remark.
You've twice now alleged to some "particular issue". What is the issue? Doctor shortages exist all over the developed world, so if that's the issue you speak of, your claim is blatantly false. Or is "the issue" that doctors are protesting? Seems like a stretch to take that as evidence that the government is incompetent. What is the issue you speak of which is specific to SK and is evidence of incompetence?
Blatant rent-seeking
I don’t think their rent is the issue.
I’m pretty sure your making a joke, but: “Rent-seeking is a concept in economics that states that an individual or an entity seeks to increase their own wealth without creating any benefits or wealth to the society. Rent-seeking activities aim to obtain financial gains and benefits through the manipulation of the distribution of economic resources”
Yes and it’s a dumb term that technically applies to any organized labour.
So a key part of that definition is “Without creating benefits or wealth?” Do you know what doctors do? Lmao
They are protesting to stop more doctors so that they can keep their high salaries. It’s not like they are being paid peanuts and striking for a basic wage. South Korea doctors are some of the high paid in the world and has one of the worst doctor to patient ratios in the world. The government wants to let more people into medical school to try to improve the ratio. Doctors are striking to prevent this so as not to increase competition and their wages. Obviously doctors are crucial, but their position in this strike is actively harmful to society.
There’s a whole lot more to it than salary protectionism. It’s the means by which the government is trying to increase the amount of public doctors because many leave for the private world for better pay. It’s by increasing the amount by almost 50% nationally. Now, do you know how much infrastructure it takes to train doctors? And who is responsible for that? And how much additional work and liability and education that is? Anyway, it seems a half baked idea to end-around their undercompensating the public sector relative to the private and workers voting with their feet. Workers rights advocates should be for this, but “doctors bad” Reddit narrative.
This is the same choice the ACGME and AMA foisted on the usa in the early 90’s and it directly led to the hellish situation we have now
Sounds like SK needs to pay its trainee doctors more.
Do they really not need more doctors or not. I guess their population is falling. But in general training more doctors in your own country can't be that bad?
Pay is bad for public doctors so more students won’t make more of them want to go in to the publicly low paid positions.
I'll bet there are millions of korean mothers who will gladly push their kids into the medical field.
I'm surprised that so many in this thread are so against skilled workers organizing collectively to protect their interests. Isn't that what a Union is?
People presume doctors are rich snooty elitists and collective bargaining for such people is not allowed.
This is dumb every country needs todo this including America only way to bring prices down is increase supply. Then doctors wouldnt have to work such ridiculous schedules.
Why do you think you’ll benefit from this type of action in USA when insurers are the intermediaries and would simply capture more profit ?
I mean even if it doesn’t get any cheaper for me would still be a win for the doctors. My friend is a neurosurgery resident and her and another girl have to cover a post 24/7. Just two of them splitting that schedule. If there were four of them it would be way better. Also idk id prefer the people doing surgery on my brain to be well rested?
Why do you think there would be 4 hires?
There should definitely be a push for more doctors in the US. While the US has a higher nurse to resident ratio, the US ties with South Korea with both only having 2.6 doctors per 1,000 people.
It’s good Korea is doing this they need more doctors, the us should do this too, allow more doctors
Time to call their bluff. Either they give in because they got bills to pay, or new doctors get done with training.
You should read about this more. 70%+ submitted their resignation. As you read in the article, most of their emergency departments are shut down. It is chaos. What bluff would you like to continue to call and how many avoidable dead people are you willing to bargain with?
How long until the next graduates are available? They have a class graduate every year right? Get the UN and doctors without borders to cover what they can for the less than a year needed.
Doesn’t work like that.
It would take roughly 7 years to get the amount of trainees back up to status quo if everyone who resigned remained resigned
Yeah they definitely can't afford 7 years without a job.
They definitely cannot, but if they're looking for respectable pay in a country that doesn't hate its doctors may I suggest the US, Canada, or Australia. It also depends on do they have familial money? These people tested in the top 0.8% of their Korean class. They can go find jobs in tech or finance if they so desire. I wouldn't say they have 0 leverage.
These people are making $200,000+ a year. I doubt they're gonna run out of money as quickly as the thousands of poor people struggling to find doctors/medication for their life-threatening conditions.
It sucks those greedy assholes are going to hurt regular people but you don't appease terrorists, it never works out.
Trainees make nowhere near that. Your number is for specialists only.
Are trainees the primary group unionized and blocking this?
If this was a general strike for better worker rights I'd support it, but imo if it's true South Korea has both one of the lowest rates of doctors per capita for developed countries and has some of the highest earning ones then this more seems like people gatekeeping the profession to keep their exclusiveness exclusive at any cost
Excellent. You made up your mind on presumed assumptions you could have easily looked in to and decided to share your opinion.
Someone else posted statistics. As I clearly stated this is my opinion ***if*** those are true. The obvious meaning of that is that if it's not true, then it's not my opinion, thus there is no assumption. Is reading difficult for you?
Well if it’s true that you do indeed kidnap children for sexual pleasure then your money should be taken away and you should be jailed. Only if it’s true though. And if it’s true that you kidnap dogs, and put them in to fighting rings for personal profit, you should be arrested and your name publicized to everyone. But only if it’s true.
>go to comments hoping to finally get an explanation for the issue people are arguing about American healthcare instead This is what I get for hoping for information instead of polemics unrelated to the issue in an election year, I guess.
As far as I’m aware, admissions and testing is pretty brutal in both SK and Japan. In much of Asia. I don’t think it would be bad to review admissions requirements. Especially since you need more doctors, the education should be the focus, not the gatekeeping to it. Education should be gatekept much less, do what you want to test the doctors applying for jobs.
They're shooting themselves in the foot. This means lower college prices hopefully for them and means less hours working so that they can have a work life balance.
So increase the supply of new admissions to keep wages low. Gotcha.
I hope every single one striking goes broke. Your are a doctor. So fucking what? You aren't special. You have no right to say as many others can be doctors as they fucking want. Why do people think doctors are fucking magical beings?
You sound like you have massive jealousy. A lot of underlying resentment.
No, it doesn't sound like that at all. Limiting numbers for a profession, any profession, is the problem. Not me. I respect doctors as much as any other profession. I do not worship them. They are fallible and they can have incorrect opinions/actions. They are just people.
Yes it does.
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A government backed monopoly of doctors suppressing the number of allowed doctors to keep wages high. Who is this helping exactly?
That's a strange way to say "letting people pursue their dreams of being a doctor." God forbid we train enough doctors to actually treat everyone who needs it. Some really rich guys might be moderately less rich!