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Students enter the Korea Health Personnel Licensing Examination Institute to take the national medical licensing exam. (Baek So-ah, staff photographer)

The South Korean government reiterated on Sept. 8 that it’s not considering the option of giving more than 2,700 medical students another chance to take the national medical licensing exam, as the question of whether these students deserve restitution emerges as a new source of conflict between the government and the medical community. Interns and residents at South Korea’s five biggest hospitals are returning to work, bringing the percentage of trainees still on strike to just above 30%.

“We aren’t considering the idea of giving [medical students] another opportunity to sit for the medical licensing exam. We don’t think the KMA [Korean Medical Association] and KIRA [Korean Intern Resident Association] are being reasonable when they demand that medical students be given another chance to take the exam,” said Son Young-rae, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Welfare, during the regular briefing of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters (CDSCHQ) on Tuesday.

Son said that asking the government to provide a solution when the students themselves are refusing to take the test is “basically asking us to solve an impossible situation.” Son added that “the reasonable thing is for the KMA and KIRA to put the priority on persuading the medical students themselves to change their minds and agree to take the exam.”

Members of the ruling Democratic Party also said that giving medical students another chance to register for the licensing exam was impossible. Kim Seong-ju, a senior Democratic Party member on the National Assembly’s Health and Welfare Committee, said during an appearance on CBS radio on Tuesday that “the government shouldn’t offer any more relief measures because it needs to maintain institutional consistency and equality.”

Some media outlets reported on Tuesday morning that Lee Yun-sung, president of the Korea Health Personnel Licensing Examination Institute, had hinted at the possibility of giving students another chance to sign up for the licensing exam, provided that the government and medical establishment could reach an agreement. But the Democratic Party and the government have essentially distanced themselves from that idea, insisting on the need to “stick to principles.”

The reason the government and the ruling party are taking such a stern stance is because they believe they’ve already made too many concessions. They delayed the date of the exam (originally scheduled for Aug. 31) and also extended the deadline for exam registration. That’s the context for repeated remarks that further relief would “go against fairness and equality.”

The Korean public is also strongly opposed to more stonewalling by the doctors’ organizations. As of 4 pm on Tuesday, 468,000 people had signed a petition on the Blue House website asking the government not to make allowances for medical students who cancelled their registration for the licensing exam. “Hardly any groups have the option of taking collective action by simply refusing to sit for an exam. If these people are given a medical license, they will engage in even worse guild behavior than holding the lives of the public hostage by calling a general strike at a life-or-death moment in the government’s battle with the coronavirus,” the author of the petition wrote.

But the doctors’ organizations are demanding relief for medical students who cancelled their registration for the exam, even raising the possibility of scrapping the agreement they reached with the government and resuming their strike. In a press statement on Tuesday, the KMA described Kim Seong-ju’s remarks as “shocking and unbelievable.” “If the government and ruling party continue to deny the content of the agreement in their remarks and actions, we will be forced to review the agreement from scratch or rescind it altogether. KIRA also said it would “initiate another walkout if no relief measures are offered within two weeks.”

But the doctors’ organizations have lost much of the internal momentum needed to sustain their collective action. The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) reported that the percentage of interns and residents who were still participating in the strike had dropped to 32.7% on Tuesday, from a high of over 80%, while only 1.3% of attending physicians were still on strike.

Interns and residents ended their walkout on Tuesday at four of Korea’s five largest hospitals — namely, Seoul National University Hospital, Asan Medical Center, Samsung Medical Center, and Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital — while their counterparts at Severance Hospital decided to return to work at 6 am on Wednesday.

With the walkout continuing in some areas, interns and residents who rejected the former emergency committee’s decision to return to work set up a new emergency committee under co-chairs early in the morning on Tuesday. “We object to guidelines for collective action that were drawn up without paying adequate attention to the views of the 16,000 interns and residents around the country. We will come up with reasonable ways for our views to get a hearing,” the new committee said in a statement. While some interns and residents could continue the walkout under the new leadership while demanding relief for medical students, the impact is unlikely to be as great as before.

The Korean Medical Student Association (KMSA) announced on Sept. 6 that it had unanimously decided to boycott the medical licensing exam, and as of Tuesday, it hadn’t updated its position. In a survey organized by the student body at the Seoul National University College of Medicine, 81% of respondents in their fourth year, representing the medical students who are eligible to take the licensing exam, said they wanted KMSA to halt its collective action, including its solidarity strike and boycott of the licensing test.

By Kim Mi-na and Choi Ha-yan, staff photographers

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