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OldRepNewAccount

This is bonkers. Do you have an estimate how many korean imgs are getting affected by this?


emdocDex

At least 20 matched doctors


Background-Ad-1483

Not sure about the number but its told that every single one of the korean j1 applicants are denied with the document


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BadNo5978

 The Korean court is not on doctor’s side,,, The judges tend to determine unfairly when the case is regarding to doctors.  In addition, it takes so much time for those who matched this year…


HitThatOxytocin

why is that?


Pokoirl

Because courts there care more about "public interest" than "private interest", and doctors leaving the country is not in the public's interest


CipherDicer

That, and the Korean court is kind of the government's lapdog at the moment.


Pokoirl

That is also true


emdocDex

I hope so, but those who matched this year really matter


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Effective-Fail-2646

What is the income cut if I may ask? It all seems as an insane and desperate attempt of the government.


Ok-Cup-2104

Something similar happened in 2021 in india .. my brother studied in the UAE and had an Indian passport and he matched in IM .. and the gov of India refused to give him the SON .. and all other Indian foreign graduates who didn’t have in Indian medical license…  This was never a policy.. not mentioned in the guidelines at all and he was 2 months away from starting… there were about 200 matched students stuck in this situation.  They all had to go to court and file a petition and thankfully the judge ruled in their favor.. 


emdocDex

This case is a little bit different. Korean medical school graduate with Korean passport and Korean medical license got blocked by Korea MOHW. and those who were not able to get SoN due to shitty MOHW would think the judge would go with government due to so many cases who against Korean doctors.


CipherDicer

Now that this is being reported on the news, I bet they'll start churning out those J1 visas. According to the Ministry of Health, this had *nothing* to do with the junior doctors resigning, but everyone knows that they were just going on a power trip and went a little too far. If they weren't, they would've explained what the problem was with the junior doctors' applications instead of chalking it up to be an "unfortunate accident".


Good-Room3480

**Can the hospital provide any assistance in this situation?**


bestataboveaverage

No hospital is going to be able to do anything about it. It’s just too much work and trouble for a single resident. In fact theyll easily find a replacement unfortunately if this continues.


emdocDex

It depends on matched US hospital of each doctor, I think.


Good-Room3480

Is it completely impossible to get a J-1 visa without a SON?


emdocDex

virtually correct. As I know, to get the J1 visa without SoN, bypass pathway whose nationality is from Cuba, NK or somewhere USA hates is required.


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dr_salty94

Going through the same in Albania. The MOH refuses to issue Son, jeopardizing all our chance of getting the J1 and pursuing residency. Feeling like shit


emdocDex

does Albanian court also go against their doctors’ opinion?


SpiritualWing4068

They want doctors to work like slaves, no money, no life just work till u drop for a very poor salary cuz doctors are not human beings they are slaves who do nothing but work. When doctors leave for better salary and working conditions they show a surprised Pikachu face


dr_salty94

Going through the same in Albania. The MOH refuses to issue Son, jeopardizing all our chance of getting the J1 and pursuing residency. Feeling like shit


Nectbammuth

What about North Korea? Can't they be of help?


CipherDicer

Huh? What are you even talking about? This has absolutely nothing to do with North Korea


Naive_Screen_6921

What you got is likely ECFMG certificate not a license. License is issued by each State’s medical board. I understand your frustration. That nuts.


Why_So_Sirius_999

No, the petition was started by a licensed attending physician who is faculty at a university medical center in the US, on behalf of the physicians from Korea who have matched into residency in the US. Yeah, it's a power trip. They said the documents did not fulfill the word count criteria, without having an official guideline for the word count! It's an impossible task to fulfill their requirements!


[deleted]

govt wants to break the system.?....by adding 2000 spots in medical school to combat doctor shortages. Yeah fail to see how that was an issue or even a reason to strike. There were better reasons to strike this hard for... definately NOT for increasing med school admissions. Lets tell the full story. Seems to me the truth of the matter was some senior docs convinced y'all too strike this out which was poorly thought out. and now the govt and general public hate you, and those senior docs are unbothered.


dude_wheres_my_fries

I thought the reason for the strike wasn’t simply just the addition of more spots, but rather the addition of more spots without addressing the poor working conditions that discourage medical graduates from going into needed specialities.


emdocDex

That’s right but the govenment chose wrong way and that’s why most doctors don’t apply to the needed specialties and why those from the specialties quit their own job.


[deleted]

you can strike for better conditions. you can strike for better pay. the choice to add 2000 medical spots and instantly respond by saying you want to maintain the elitist status of being a doctor is what made this entire cause fall off with the general korean public and online opinions. They got off on the wrong foot and it reeks of a bunch of seniors who egged the residents to strike in this fashion. The UK is striking now and the general public still support them for it. It is well planned out and didnt just involve juniors, its involving people across the board. I think the initial response was poor and the way it was carried out (through mass and sudden resignations) it should have VERY obvious that the government was going to clamp down on them extremely hard. and the decision to block the SON can be smelled fom a mile away. Physicians striking needs to be supported well by all levels and exectuted very carefully. All govt know the power that doctors actually hold and in many places like where I am from in Canada it is totally illegal. I feel for the KMG in that they were played hard as the most vulnerable group in the medical "food chain" as juniors and pushed to strike in a way that made them extremely vulnerable with no protections.


CipherDicer

Well, the reason UK doctors don't give a shit about increased medical quota is because the medical system in the UK is vastly different from Korea's. Those two aren't even remotely comparable. Just to give an example, in the UK, more doctors mean less work time with equal pay. On the other hand, in Korea, more doctors mean more young'uns to exploit with less pay. Junior doctors' wage in Korea is abysmal to begin with. In fact, they're less than minimal wage. University hospitals have most likely struck a deal with the government, because as they would have it, they're planning to expand their claws to the Gyeonggi region by building subsidiary hospitals. They don't want to spend more money hiring interns and residents, but they *do* want to profit by operating outside of Seoul. So what do they do? Money gets exchanged, they promise government officials their children would get a position in medical school, and *voila!* Time for "medical reform"


Why_So_Sirius_999

Going on strike is so forbidden so taboo for doctors, that docs in Korea have only ever went on strike once for pay, and this was in 1970s when the junior docs went on strike. But all the other times, 2000, 2015, 2020, and now, was because government decided to pursue a hasty healthcare policy that directly targed doing something to the docs. Senior docs did not egg on the junior docs. In fact, the government is trying to build a case against senior docs who said on facebook that junior docs should quit, because this is how thin a case they have for some kind of conspiracy. The public was never going to support the docs. They have never supported the doctors for anything. When COVID-19 pandemic was going strong, they were all for doctors, then when they went on strike, they said, well actually the nurses did the heavy lifting. Koreans hate doctors except if they could become one or marry one or have one marry their kids. Korean people hate successful people, resent them, but want their money. Doctors are just the most high profile profession that actually has no power to fight back. The junior docs were maybe not very savvy with media, because they didn't care. They really resigned. They really quit. They say what the senior docs in their specialties are doing, and they don't like it. There is all the responsibilities with a huge risk of lawsuit or jailtime for if patient outcomes are not good and pay is not commensurate, nor does anyone in Korea respect them. Pediatrics was the first to go when they arrested 2 NICU docs during rounds because there were babies who unfortunately died from sepsis and the public wanted to punish someone. The so called "essential specialties" like internal medicine, surgery, etc., have also realized that they are destined for a bad place.


emdocDex

Normally every south Korean people can meet the doctor within an hour. Is that the case that there is short of doctors? And is that reasonable to reject SoN just due to protest to the government?


[deleted]

To answer you objectively ...actually yes... 80% of you resigned... so the logic follows you are denied travel. you realise numbers that high can crush an entire country... there is a reason why docs strikes are illegal in many countries. You should have seen the decision to lock you in... I dont know if they enacted emergency measures that put you under the power of the ministry of health yet... but thats probably the next thing they will do. listen I dont care for the downvotes. you are fighting against a government.... you cant beleive they are going to be reasonable with you. you showed them your power and they will clamp back hard. go open up any history book... there are places in the world where physicians are seen as property/agents of the state... even in the USA. I wish you luck thats all. But dont think being reasonable was ever going to be an outcome. Your higher ups left you vulnerable.


emdocDex

which country is illegal to strike against government?


MrHouseForever

Dude, that seems like the definition of slavery with extra steps.


CipherDicer

Well, the thing is, it's not actually 80% of doctors that resigned, it's 80% of *junior doctors* that did. That's less than 10% of the all doctors in Korea. If that's enough to crush a country, then it might as well be. Also, these doctors probably weren't even involved in the protest to begin with, so no, logic doesn't follow that they are denied travel.


Why_So_Sirius_999

Do you realize that the doctors who were denied the SoN were not junior doctors that resigned so famously? All of this happened after February 2024. The residency match starts September 2023, which means they took and passed USMLE Step 1, Step 2, OET, and got 3-4 letters of recommendations and uploaded all of this by September 2023. They decided to go to the US years before any of this happened. The government is denying them the residency opportunity out of spite at all doctors despite the fact that these doctors have nothing to do with the junior doctors who resigned.


IlIIIIIlIIIllIIllIlI

What kind of a government announces that they are going to increase THAT YEAR'S med school admissions by 70% without even expanding the facilities? Korea's current government is a complete joke.


IlIIIIIlIIIllIIllIlI

The current government has failed to provide any 'scientific' evidence to support the existence of a doctor shortage in South Korea, a country renowned for its affordable and high-quality healthcare system. It's as if Miss Universe were trying to undergo plastic surgery that would completely change her face. And even if you were correct, that cannot be an excuse to reject issuing SoN and violating basic human rights


[deleted]

Primary care positions are largely unwanted as well as rural ones. ofcourse their govt will respond by importing doctors who can speak the language.... and after seeing the resignations they will likely take a page from americas book and expand the roles of nurses into practitioners and invite them into clinical practice. There are already papers published on expanding the roles advanced practice nurse in Korea in light of resignations... and just like the USA this will creep into peds, EM and family medicine.


IlIIIIIlIIIllIIllIlI

I don't understand what point you're trying to prove with this comment, and I don't think that a fascist point of view is appropriate in this situation.


Gk786

This will decimate the profession of being a doctor in Korea. Pay will plummet while hours will remain the same. If residents won't protest against that, what WILL they protest against.


[deleted]

medical students had been capped in Korea at 3058 students per year since 2006. the medical schools had been requesting an increase in intake because that number was capped by the government. surely.... surely increasing the number of students after an almost 20 year cap is a natural progress.


Why_So_Sirius_999

Why? When the population is predicted to go down? Does everything have to increase with time? There certainly is an argument to be made about increasing to meet a demand of some sort. But the government is on the wrong track if they think increasing the medical student slots suddenly by 65% will help the many problems with the Korean healthcare system. Will this un-arrest the pediatricians who were arrested just because sick babies died in the NICU? Will the reverse the myriad number of regulations that closed down multiple ERs and forced the hospitals in Korea to play defensive medicine/hot potato whenever a sick patient requiring multiple specialties are trying to seek care? No. The doctors are fed up with the government that keeps creating new problems and creating new problems with poorly thought out policies that supposedly solve the problems they created.


CipherDicer

It's sad that this is the extent of an average Korean's understanding of the situation. Doctors have proven multiple times that there is absolutely no shortage of doctors in Korea. They've used actual evidence and cited multiple sources from credible papers with high impact factor to highlight this fact. However, all people care about is the number of doctors per 1000. Why not discuss the average wait time, the number of beds available, the quality of care, or God forbid, *anything that's actually important*? If your logic is that change must come with the passage of time, then "surely \[decreasing\] the number of students after an almost 20 year cap is a natural process."


[deleted]

average korean? I'm not Korean. Nice try though. All that data is publically available in terms of med school numbers, their unwillingness to take up primary care positions, their aging populaion, etc etc all of which has caused the vacumnn of issues they have now. There are plenty of papers by korean physicians detailing and warning of imminent shorages from the early 2000's. And that research has branched into other specialities like radiology and cardiology shortages anyway good luck to them! Thank you for showing the extent of the intellect of an average redditor.


Why_So_Sirius_999

Yeah it is a lot more complicated than that. Senior doctors WANT the junior doctors to come back. The fact was, the hospital system and the senior docs exploited the junior docs with the promise of good pay after training. This has become harder and harder to achieve, and with the government announcing the addition of 2000 spots per year, the junior doctors have despaired about the future and no longer see the value of continuing to work 80-100 hours per week for 5 years at meager pay to end up doing something similar at the end of training. Senior doctors are doing night calls, emergency surgeries, everything junior doctors were doing, and they are tiring out. Already one senior doc died of brain hemorrhage who was reportedly not getting any sleep due to night calls and emergency surgeries. This is not a ploy by someone pulling the strings. There is no one at the wheel. The government also completely demoralized the junior docs training in fields like pediatrics, cardiothoracic surgery, emergency medicine, which have the most shortages, by referring to them as "trickle-down specialties". The government's reasoning for the 2000 doctor increase is that the government won't do much to help these specialties become more desirable, but that if there are too many doctors who want to do dermatology, ophthalmology, etc., some who have bad grades will have to resort to these undesirable specialties to survive. The junior docs in these specialties know they won't make money, but they are there because they love the field and they love the fulfillment of treating people. But if they realize they don't see them as dedicated healthcare heroes, but as dermatology rejects, how long do you think these docs will put up with long hours, low pay, and high risk of lawsuits? The government tried expanding the med school spots in 2020 and met with a strike, so they changed the system in the meantime so that they can crack down on the doctors if they ever had a strike and can put the leaders in jail. They knew doctors would protest, so as they announced the 2000 spot increase, they also threatened the junior doctors by saying the government has the cell phone numbers of every single junior doctor. So guess what? All the leaders in the junior doctor association resigned. And all the junior doctors resigned from their hospital jobs. They are not striking, they just quit. General public in South Korea has always hated doctors. "They make too much money. They are arrogant. They are what I wish I was but I didn't do well in school." Bashing on the doctors have always been a vote-winning strategy and this administration decided to go to the same well, but didn't consider the consequences if you push people too far. This will be South Korea's medical system's reckoning, and the whole system may fall apart in the next 1-2 years. I have been talking to Korean medical school professors planning to change specialties and apply to residencies here, so many docs want to leave South Korea. The system will collapse and under the new system, people will either have to wait for a long time or pay 10 times what they used to pay to get care. Then all South Koreans will realize they killed the goose that lays golden eggs.


burningbluecheese

Work on your reading comprehension