Younger Doctors Spinoff of Hospital Playlist K-drama Resident Playbook with Go Yoon Jung Hits Airing Date Snag with Real Life Doctor Strike in South Korea

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• I don't quite understand.
  There's a significant doctor shortage, so the government wants to expand the number of available spots in medical schools--and because of this, the existing doctors wish to go on strike? How are they actually justifying the strike? It can't be they are outright admitting they don't want too many new doctors entering their ranks, thus affecting the medical care demand/supply balance in the population's favor but to the detriment of the existing doctors? Can they?

  • I read an article's view point and it states apparently, they are already being underpaid. Many doctors aren't able to stay in the field considering it's pay/benefit hence they go onto other field. Instead of fix the issue w/ better pay and utilize the currently available Dr, they are adding additional up and coming Dr. It is believe it will not solve the issue itself due to S.Korean's Hospital business structure... they are afterall owned/operate by Government or big/rich conglomerate families.

    • @lil
      Oh, I see. So doctors there are actually underpaid to the point that they can't continue in this field if they want to support themselves? Hard to imagine. One's general impression is that the medical field is one of the best-paid and thus most attractive (and competitive), particularly in first-world countries. In my fringe-of-the-EU country, the doctors dissatisfied with their pay in the public system just choose to spend some of their working hours in private clinics instead (charging much higher fees), but would never dream of giving up the profession altogether. After all, they've invested 10+ years of their life (college + residency) to become doctors, so starting over in a different profession would be such a radical decision.

    • According to the doctors striking,what they need is better pay and better working coditions.the area/field that are currently facing critical shortage is pediatrition,many doctors are shunning the field cos pediatrition has the lowest pay in the country.

    • There was a similar strike early this year initiated by German doctors. Many countries not only have shortage in healthcare workforce, but also have issues of underpay. For example, Taiwan.

      Japan and the US are perhaps the two countries paying doctors the best compared with other professionals. On the other hand, without insurance, medical costs in the US are exorbitant. Health care provided in the US isn't necessarily better than that in Taiwan though. And most Americans are very critical of the current healthcare system in the US. There's a balance between high compensations and reasonable healthcare expenditure. Raising salaries alone can't solve all the issues.

    • +one France , we need doctors, nurses,... we talk about "Medical desert" and the ones who are working are extenued !

• @adnana- you might want to read up on what the working conditions are for the junior doctors. This is at the major teaching hospitals. The actual annual pay and the actual working hours.

  I don't know what country you're in but the increased enrolment to get more doctors into the ER, paediatrics, rural and less popular disciplines are the reason the government sprouted. The government did not address the pay and working hours. You do realise that Kdramas have a smidgen of reality. Seniors do scream at juniors and the tired overworked doctor that worked all night is not all Kdrama.

  Yes I sympathise with the striking RMO. Any resident will tell you that's insane. By the way surgeons will go on strike if they have to operate all night, see consults and then a whole day's work from 8am.

  I used to work in a country with this sort of working hours.

  No you do not go to medical school to do this sort of shit. For that pay.

  Well unless you can get into the lucrative money making disciplines and with office hours.

  • @ck1Oz
    Thank you for your reply.
    I was simply reacting to the way the issue was presented: "there is a looming doctor strike ... in response to the government expanding the number of students into medical school in order to address the nationwide doctor shortage." Doesn't this phrase read as if the doctors are protesting against the introduction of new competition, even though more doctors are sorely needed?
    Nothing about the doctors' terrible working conditions and underpayment is even hinted at, so of course readers not in the know will react negatively to a news that pretty much translates to "doctors are putting personal gain above saving human lives".
    So, it turns out this newsreport didn't present the complete facts and/or misrepresented them, precisely to manipulate the reader. This is just as to be expected, nowadays, isn't it? People don't care enough to further research the manipulations I care about (like cows driving climate change), and I don't care to research the working conditions of junior doctors because my personal interactions with doctors have made me unsympathetic.

• Doctors on strike? This isn't gonna well received by the public.

  Shareholders and boards of directors controlling the finance of these hospital systems are the major source of all the issues.

• I dont' usually comment but as a resident in Canada I feel sad hearing the public impression of doctors as rich and entitled and just holding patients hostage to get a pay raise. Most countries have a public system (Canada is fully public), and a private system. Doctors working in the public system, who are usually also not the ones in it for the money since this is the system that serves the masses and vulnerable populations, are usually very under-payed. Just see the recent NHS crisis in the UK, patients travelling there can't even gat reliable access to antibiotics due to the lack of staff and access because of overwork and poor working conditions and strain from the recent pandemic. Even in Canada, we have a family medicine crisis with 1 in 4 of our population now no longer having access to family doctors because many have chosen to retire early, close and transition their practice.

  Resident simply choose not go into family medicine due to the poor pay. We are legally not allowed to strike and we don't want to hold patients hostage so to speak, but we can't provide services if we can't afford to run our practices and it's more frustrating and invalidating that everyone seems to hang on to the out-dated stereotype of the rich doctor who's always off on vacation - even if they exist they are th minority of MDs and work long hours or can bill patients privately.

  The fee schedule has not caught up with inflation in the past 20 years. The government pays family physicians less than 15$ for a pap, a sensitive and vital exam for women for cervical cancer screening. A general visit is just about 40$ which is suppose to encompass multiple issues and include follow-ing up on lab work and pharmacy up to weeks or months later, maybe in the middle of the night if it is an urgent result - this is all unpaid.

  Don't take my word for it, the previous presidents of the Ontario Provincial Association have spoken out and urged residents to NOT go into family medicine -

  https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/as-family-doctors-our-prescription-for-residents-is-to-not-set-up-a-practice-in/article_92430004-d015-11ee-9408-d711cf0d1b55.html

  Here is a blog post from a resident's perspective:
  https://justanoldcountrydoctor.com/2024/02/17/dr-corli-barnes-on-the-challenges-facing-new-family-physicians/?fbclid=IwAR0MvdiH6YjN6tUJU9ZapjYMJTxf5CBmM0t7nNmSrPcVC-UZWoWDlGRN1e4

  I know this isn't the typical space or audience for this, but as a resident doctor who loves kdramas and cdramas, I'm hoping to provide more exposure to the struggles of canadian primary care doctors. I truly sympathize with the residents in Korea as well.

  Please don't make assumptions about youths who sacrifice more then a decade and often the entirety of our 20s on learning how to help people, providing hospital coverage for 26-36hrs at a time, and putting other's health before our own without understanding the context or the healthcare system we have to work in that is often underfunded by taxes and budget cuts. If we wanted to prioritize money and manipulate the public or hold them hostage so we can get a raise and run away with the pot of gold, we wouldn't have gone into this career in the first place.

  I can't speak for the situation in Korea, but if you are Canadian or more specifically in Ontario, I urge you to support our primary care doctors. Check out their new union website here - it's a grassroots group trying to raise awareness, as the provincial association is paid by the government and has turned its back on its constituents - see the article by the ex-presidents of said association above.

  https://oufp.ca/

• I am on the side of the doctors. The media did not reveal the real reasons because they are controlled by politicians and wealthy people. When doctors resign, they want to sue them—what the hell? It’s not like they are simply MIA. They walk out because their pleas have been ignored.

  With excessive workloads and insufficient rest, people still expect doctors to provide top-quality care. But when they themselves don’t get enough sleep, it’s impossible to focus and how are we going to give the best quality care. Not to mention rising medical legal, the junior doctors are making the right decision.

  I went through hell as a junior doctor. I used to do all-night calls for 24 hours, and then I had to see outpatient clinics until 5 pm next day, and I still needed to make a night call the day after. I was breastfeeding at that time, and my milk completely dried up due to the frequent on-call shifts. I survived, but it was HELL.