Real situations & informations about why Korean doctors on strike are Korean medical students are taking their semester off

 I am a medical student in Korea. We are not on strike or taking semester off for our own greed.... we are doing this to prevent the government ruining current medical system in Korea. a deep understanding of korean medical system and how hospitals here earn money is needed to get why we are doing protests

We call the doctors working in specialties like ER, pediatrics, GS and stuffs "필수과", literally meaning "vital specialties" and they are the ones who are working at a very low cost, in high risk of litigation, but chose the specialties just to save the patients in need. Most of the doctors now on strikes are them. It might sound quite contradictory, but if you slightly change your point of view, this also shows how much the policies the government suggest can ruin the medical system. We are protesting against two policies: one is about the number of admission of medical school, and the other is the policies called "필수의료패키지" (policies package for vital specialties). I personally think the latter one is a bigger problem. Most of the doctors and medical students, who are really working in the medical environment, are sure that these policies will ruin Korean medical systems. For example, there are two kinds of medical costs that hospitals can get in Korea, one is called "급여" and the other is called "비급여". The costs of medical practices held as "급여" are all decided by the government, and the cost is now IRRATIONALLY LOW so that if doctors give the medical practice, it becomes apparently deficit to the hospital. So they barely make up for the deficit by "비급여", of which the doctors can adjust the costs of medical services, or by donation given to the hospital. but the government is now trying to even regulate the costs of medical services provided as "비급여". Then, we cannot offer both services "급여" and "비급여", because neither can make up for the deficit or give sufficient amount of money to continuously run hospitals. Some media say Korean doctors earn like the biggest in the world, but that is never true. They should invest their life for 10 years to perform normal medical examination as a doctor, and regarding the cost of time and tuition fees, i am always feeling, as a medical student, this never is economically good way of earning money. Also, the hospitals are just barely maintaining current systems by volume sales at a low unit margin of profit, which is regulated by the government. That is why you can get a quick medical services in Korea, but cannot get sufficient time to exactly understand what surgery i am undergoing (explanation time before surgery, like in U.S.), because doctors are lack of time to explain all those things. I think this MUST BE CORRECTED for the patients, and the way of correcting this is by raising the payment of medical services that are regulated by the government. The "vital specialties" provides most of the services as "급여" form right now, and also, those services are full of risk of getting sued by their patients, so those are the reasons why many Korean medical students cannot dare to choose to get those specialties. The Korea media (especially KBS) is under the control of government, so they lose their neutral position, and most of the information provided by those Korean media are very limited. So normal citizens even in Korea are not well persuaded by doctors because we are lacking of media to convey our real messages. If you genuinely want to provide any REAL information about current MEDICAL situation, getting information through instagrams of medical students or doctors would be better, or if i can help a bit i am really willing to offer information over current situations in Korea. Though my English is bad, if you need any help from me, i will try my best to convey our messages. I genuinely, sincerely wish people do not misunderstand what we are wanting to show through our strikes, protests and semester off.

https://www.koreatimes.net/ArticleViewer/Article/157537

he, the one who is gagged, is a pediatrician, and that means he is in one of the "vital specialties". The "vital specialties" doctor was trying to say to the Korean president, that this policy package is wrong, and we want to communicate, but as you can see, this is the way of how the current Korean government deal with their opposers. The real doctors, in the real medical site, knows that this is wrong, and trying their best to let people know that this is wrong. But our attempts are continuously being blocked by the government. You should know this truth.