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Lim Hyun-taek, the head of the Korean Pediatric Association and newly elected president of the Korean Medical Association, gives an address after his election win on March 26, 2024. (Yonhap)

Lim Hyun-taek, the head of the Korean Pediatric Association, has been elected as the new leader of the Korean Medical Association (KMA). A well-known hard-liner, Lim has been advocating for talks to discuss the underlying reasoning behind the increase in medical school admissions, which has prompted concern that the rift between physicians and the government will continue to deepen.

On Tuesday, the KMA announced that Lim won 21,646 votes, or 65.4% of the total vote, in the runoff election for the election of KMA’s 42nd president. The runoff was held online on Monday and Tuesday. Lim’s rival, Joo Soo-ho, the chief spokesperson for the KMA’s interim leadership committee, received 11,438 votes (34.6% of all votes).

In the first round of voting, which ran through Friday, Lim and Joo received the most votes, with Lim receiving 12,031 and Joo gaining 9,846. 

Lim’s term will last three years.

Lim is known to be one of the KMA’s most vocal opponents of the government’s decision to increase the medical school admission quota.

When the allocation of medical school seats for the 2025 academic year was announced on March 20, he issued a statement saying, “Physicians will fight to the very end to protect essential health care against the fascist Yoon Suk-yeol administration,” adding, “We have now reached a point in which physicians cannot stand idly by.”

On Feb. 1, Lim was dragged away by members of the presidential office’s security service after shouting his opposition to the administration’s health care policies, including the proposed expansion of admissions to medical school, during a roundtable on livelihood issues hosted by President Yoon Suk-yeol at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital. 

Lim Hyun-taek (with hand over mouth) is removed from an event on public livelihoods presided over by President Yoon Suk-yeol after shouting in opposition to the Yoon administration’s plan to increase medical school admissions. (courtesy of Lim)

Recently, Lim instigated controversy by accusing Park Min-soo, the second vice minister of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, of purposely mispronouncing the word “doctor” to use an expression that belittles doctors during a Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters briefing.

He has also reported Park and Minister of Health and Welfare Cho Kyoo-hong to the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials on charges of abuse of power and prevention of the exercise of rights. Lim is also under investigation by the Ministry of Health and Welfare on charges of violating the administration’s order for returning to work, criminal obstruction of operations, and aiding and abetting.

It is highly likely that physicians will be emboldened by having such a figure heading the 140,000-member KMA, leading to speculation that they will ratchet up the tenor of their protests against the government.

Lim has advocated for an association-wide response to the government’s policy initiation of increasing medical school admissions. While medical interns, residents, and medical professors have been submitting resignations en masse, private practice physicians, who make up the majority of the association, have yet to join in any collective action. On March 15, Lim announced, “If I am elected KMA president, I will lead a general strike of physicians as the president-elect.”

The pediatrician’s belligerent rhetoric has continued even after his election. When giving his victory speech, he stated, “Proper discussions between the government and physicians will only take place after the government is ready to go back to the drawing board on the medical admissions expansion issue and when medical residents and interns are open to dialogue.”

He later met with reporters to comment, “Dialogue with the government will only be possible when Cho and Park are dismissed and the nomination of Ahn Sang-hoon, former senior presidential secretary for social affairs who was involved in the policy of expanding the medical school admission quota, is canceled. An apology from the president is also a must.”

By Cheon Ho-sung, staff reporter

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