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Rural hospitals are short of doctors and not even high pay will attract them

Published: 15 Dec. 2025, 13:57

Medical staff stand in a corridor outside an operating room at Chosun University Hospital in Dong District, Gwangju, on July 14, in this photo unrelated to the story. [YONHAP]

Rural health care in Korea remains unresolved as the government presses for greater regulation to address doctor shortages, provincial hospitals struggle to recruit staff and physicians push back against both rural assignments and proposals to expand medical school enrollment.

Earlier this month, the National Assembly passed legislation aimed at addressing these shortages by creating a regional physician system, but its impact is expected to be gradual — a reality already visible at provincial hospitals that have turned to stopgap measures as they wait for longer-term solutions.

A medical center in Gangwon has been outsourcing part of its MRI and CT scan procedures — having them done physically at the center but read by physicians in Seoul — since November, when two radiologists resigned at the same time. Hospital officials described the arrangement as a temporary fix to cover an unexpected gap in staffing, but it has become a telling example of the strain facing regional medical institutions.

Radiology, along with orthopedics and rehabilitation, is one of the most desired medical specialties among residents. Despite this, the medical center in Gangwon has had to resort to offering a pretax annual salary of 480 million won ($325,000) to recruit replacements. Still, they say they cannot attract candidates.

“Because there is simply no supply of doctors in the region, it is not easy to find anyone," a hospital source said.

The growing difficulty of staffing local hospitals has pushed the issue of regional medical collapse back to the forefront of national policy.

The legislation passed by the National Assembly was designed to bolster regional and essential health care. Under a regional physician system, medical students admitted through a special regional track must work in designated areas for 10 years after graduation.

A residents-only area inside a university hospital in Seoul is seen on June 25. [NEWS1]

Versions of the policy were promoted under the Moon Jae-in and Yoon Suk Yeol administrations, but the Lee Jae Myung government has made its implementation a central priority.

The shortages the law seeks to address are longstanding. According to Kim Yoon, a lawmaker from the liberal Democratic Party, 19 of the 23 provincial medical centers accredited as residency training hospitals last year had no resident doctors at all, leaving younger physicians almost entirely absent from local public hospitals.

Recruitment efforts have intensified, but with limited success. An analysis of physician recruitment posts on Friday showed that more than half of the country’s 35 provincial medical centers were seeking doctors, most offering pretax annual salaries ranging from 200 million to 500 million won.

Some hospitals have experimented with nonfinancial incentives. A medical center in South Chungcheong recently became the first to introduce a four-and-a-half-day workweek. Still, the hospital has been reposting the same offer several times because it has failed to find applicants.

“If even large cities are struggling, it is much worse for smaller ones,” said an administrative director at a county hospital in North Gyeongsang.

“The situation calls for extraordinary measures," said Yoon Chang-gyu, the director of Chungju Medical Center.

Medical staff talks to a patient's family member in front of a university hopsital in Seoul on Feb. 5. [NEWS1]

Even if the regional physician system succeeds, it will take at least a decade before it produces doctors who remain in local communities. Regional health care officials say the policy’s effectiveness will hinge on detailed enforcement rules and support measures that have yet to be put in place. Key questions, including how many students will be selected under the program, remain unresolved and have been left to lower-level regulations.

Cho Seung-yeon, a surgeon at Gangwon State Yeongwol Medical Center and former head of the Korea Association of Regional Public Hospitals, argued that retention matters as much as placement.

“Rather than forcing doctors to stay, we need to create an environment where people from the region feel rewarded working where they grew up,” he said. “That means strengthening national university hospitals as regional hubs, expanding faculty staffing and building a system of rotational appointments.”

Park Geon-hee, head of the Pyeongchang County Public Health Center, said the policy must avoid creating a hierarchy within the profession.

“The core issue in drafting the enforcement rules is ensuring regional physicians are not labeled ‘second-tier doctors,’” he said. “A training network that links tertiary hospitals with primary and secondary care institutions would make regional practice a more attractive option.”

Exacerbating the situation is that opposition within the medical community to the regional physician system remains strong. When the Ministry of Health and Welfare posted a video on social media featuring residents calling for more local doctors, some physicians responded with hostile comments, saying that since major hospitals are in the capital area, patients could travel by train to receive medical services.

The issue of patients traveling long distances for treatment is expected to be discussed by a prime minister-led committee on medical reform that officially launched last Thursday.

A public health graduate school professor with a medical background, who asked not to be named, said the debate often overlooks the immediate reality.

“The real problem is that in many regions, even urgent medical care cannot be provided in time,” the professor said.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY CHAE HYE-SEON [[email protected]]