South Korea’s trainee doctors began returning to hospitals on Monday, ending an unprecedented 18-month walkout that had left operating rooms short-staffed, procedures postponed and patient backlogs growing.
The strike began in February 2024 when more than 10,000 doctors — including interns and residents — walked off the job in protest against a government plan to more than double medical school admissions by 2035.
The proposal, initiated by former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to ease a chronic shortage of doctors, sparked fierce opposition from physicians and medical students.
The students decided to end the strike after South Korean President Lee Jae Myung took office in June, and with the health ministry reaching a deal last month that allowed trainees to return without penalty and let hospitals take them on even beyond their official quotas.
Major hospitals — many of which had been postponing surgeries and appointments, and struggling with staff burnout — quickly began recruiting returnees for a new residency term that started Sept. 1.
The return of the trainees marks the end of one of the longest labor disputes in South Korea’s medical sector, during which doctors pushed for higher pay, better working conditions and more resources for hospitals still stretched thin after the pandemic.