Next year, allocations to majors in non-metropolitan areas will be increased

When allocating seats to medical residents next year, the government will increase the allocation ratio for non-metropolitan areas and review ways to link it with the medical school quota ratio by region in the mid- to long-term.

Park Min-soo, the second vice minister of Health and Welfare, said at a briefing on the doctors’ collective action headquarters on the 5th, saying, “Yesterday, the medical school education support task force agreed that the number of residents at local teaching hospitals should be further expanded to secure local medical manpower.”

In particular, he explained, “The current quota quota for medical schools in non-metropolitan areas is 66% of all medical school quota, but the allocation ratio for residents is 45%, so there is an imbalance between medical school quota and resident quota.”

Accordingly, he said, “We will make a final decision by November of this year after collecting opinions from residents, professional societies, and training hospitals and discussing with the Training Environment Evaluation Committee.”

Vice Minister Park explained, “If you receive training after graduating from medical school in the region, the rate of settling down and working in the region is high, but currently, even if you graduate from medical school in the region, you often move to the metropolitan area to receive training, so the rate of settling in the region is low.” .

Accordingly, the government held a medical school education support TF meeting to discuss the direction of allocating the number of residents by region, and decided to alleviate the imbalance between the number of seats at medical schools in the metropolitan area and non-metropolitan areas and the number of residents.

In addition, we plan to increase the rate of those who train in the region and settle down in the region after graduating from a local medical school, and provide support to strengthen training capacity in the region, such as increasing the number of professors at national university hospitals and expanding clinical education and training centers.

Meanwhile, since the 4th, the government has designated and operated 47 of a total of 168 cooperation hospitals as cancer treatment cooperation hospitals.

Collaborating hospitals for cancer treatment are hospitals with a cancer adequacy evaluation level of 1 or 2, which is evaluated based on factors such as whether they have cancer treatment specialists and whether surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy are appropriately administered.

Through this, among the 47 hospitals, 21 hospitals had an appropriateness evaluation rating of 1 or 2 for the four major cancers, including colon cancer, stomach cancer, breast cancer, and lung cancer.

The other 26 hospitals have received an adequacy rating of 1 or 2 for one or more types of cancer, or have performed frequent cancer treatments such as cancer surgeries in the past year and are hospitals with high treatment capabilities.

In particular, the government will specialize in cancer fields such as blood cancer, solid cancer, and cancer surgery in the treatment capacity information of general hospitals and use it for cooperative treatment with tertiary general hospitals.

In addition, we plan to provide information on cancer treatment hospitals using emergency medical portals so that the public can easily check.

Vice Minister Park emphasized, “In the future, we will continue to expand the number of cancer treatment cooperation hospitals to more than 70 and strengthen the treatment cooperation system between tertiary general hospitals and cancer treatment cooperation hospitals to ensure that cancer patients can receive treatment with peace of mind.”