South Korea to suspend doctor licences as strike crisis escalates
South Korea to suspend doctor licences as strike crisis escalates
Some 9,000 doctors walked off the job two weeks ago over government plans to increase medical school admissions.
I'm not sure I'm getting the big picture on this, they are on strike because the government wants to train more doctors? Surely that's a good thing?
I read the average residency there is over 100hrs per week in 36hr shifts, the US is around 60. They are paid a fraction as well ($1500/mo) and have very little workers rights. This should be an honorable profession but the hospitals and government treat them like garbage. The only reason they want to expand the training is to keep exploiting them.
I guarantee none of you work this hard, especially the asshole that called them greedy.
Residents in the US have 80 hours with maximum of 28 hour shifts, not a ton better. Though average salary is better at 58,000. Still, considering the hours worked and 8 years of schooling up to that point, ugh.
Residency is just a terrible idea through and through, absolutely insane. Where else could you start a job and be told "right so you're new here, this is life and death decision making, we'd like you to stay up working for 28 hrs straight doing this. Alright, get to work!"
If a resident gets two days off, it's called a "golden weekend." What most people refer to as, a weekend. It's just exploitation. Even more so when you consider Medicare pays for residents (and they even pay the hospitals more than the resident's actual salary! So the hospital pockets that difference and benefits from all the direct value the residents generate too). There's even an exception in US anti trust law to make the system legal. Glad more residents are unionizing here as well. Residency is horrible and needs to go.
https://www.acgme.org/globalassets/pfassets/programrequirements/cprresidency_2023.pdf
There's even this lovely line:
The program, in partnership with its Sponsoring Institution, must ensure adequate sleep facilities and safe transportation options for residents who may be too fatigued to safely return home
So, so tired not even safe to return home (which I mean they're right, it is not safe to be driving after staying up 24 hours straight) but continue doing patient care while you're that impaired, it's fine.
In a prospective study, new medical interns went from 3.9% meeting criteria for major depressive disorder to 25% after starting. And depression was linked with increased medical errors to boot. Of course mean work hours was a major association of depression too.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/210823
Totally asinine, a whole enormous meat grinding machine that needs to go, but is stuck in place by historical inertia and current profits for large hospitals.
Why would I want to work that hard?
They’re attempting to massively increase the number of new students without also massively increasing the support required.
You can’t just bump intakes 40% without a plan.
That makes a lot more sense. Thank you.
The doctors say the government should first address pay and working conditions before trying to increase the number of physicians.
Always question the motive by anything done by the current SK admin. Yoon is a fascist.
In this case, they are expanding intake without expanding support, in an already extremely difficult field. This will not work.
It's about pay. If the market is flooded, the hospitals will be free to lower their wages substantially because they'll have more replacements available or they'll be working with more people on the same budget.
Yeah, but they're shitty, greedy people so they don't want competition.
Well, it’s gonna end up like in France. A numerus clausus was set up in the 70s as doctors were afraid too many doctors would mean less patients and money for them. 50 years later, those now old fucks are now complaining there’s not enough doctors to care for them and that’s true. The wait list to see an ophthalmologist is usually 6mo to 1y long for examples We bring in French speaking doctors from Eastern European and North African countries to help staff our hospitals. Numerus clausus was cancelled in 2020 but we’re in a vicious circle with not big enough infrastructure to teach them: uni amphi are too small, not enough doctors to train them for their rotations in the hospital, etc. So IMO these striking Korean doctors can get bent.
"that hobo should have worked harder"
context in case you haven't seen the hilarious edit i'm referring to
A lot of people don't know that South Korea is a capitalist shithole and just how bad things have gotten. If you want a perfect modern example of capitalism turning into fascism in real time, they're a great place to look.