So even the Korean medical professors are joining in on the effort to keep the number of doctors in Korea artificially low. These creates a scarcity of the service they provide thus driving higher prices:
Some medical school professors shaved their heads or tendered resignations on Tuesday in protest over the government’s plan to increase the medical school enrollment quota, as the strike by about 9,000 trainee doctors entered its third week and the health ministry threatened to take disciplinary action against those defying a return-to-work order.
As 40 medical schools nationwide applied for a combined 3,401 additional admission seats by the Monday deadline in response to the government’s plan to hike the enrollment quota by 2,000 beginning next year, medical professors further stepped up their protests.
About 10 professors of Kangwon National University’s medical school in Chuncheon, 76 kilometers east of Seoul, held a hair-shaving ceremony Tuesday morning, expressing their opposition to the university’s application for an additional enrollment quota.
“Though many professors expressed their opposition to an increase in new admissions, the university made the opposite decision,” said Ryu Se-min, head of Kangwon National University’s medical school.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
This chapel replaces one that was over 50 years old:
A new chapel at this base south of Seoul “promises to enhance not only our strengths in worship, but our social connections, resilience and education efforts,” the wing commander said as its doors opened last week. The chapel, three years in construction, replaces its worn-out, demolished predecessor with a sanctuary that seats 306 and room for overflow.
“The previous chapel served Airmen for more than 50 years,” 51st Fighter Wing commander Col. William McKibban said in a statement Friday. “This one promises to deliver and serve Airmen for another 50 years, symbolizing an investment in Osan today for the Airmen of tomorrow, as well as over commitment to providing top-notch support to our service members and their families.”
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
This Sergeant Major in Korea faced a real nightmare upon trying to retire:
Retired Sgt. Major Eriq Brown first learned of his criminal record in 2021 during a screening for veteran disability benefits as part of his retirement from the Army. He met with a civilian psychologist in South Korea as part of a post-traumatic stress disorder screening. The psychologist asked him whether his pending criminal charge was causing him emotional distress. Brown, who spent 28 years doing human resources work in the Army, said he looked at the doctor perplexed.
Two years prior, a fellow soldier in Korea accused him of assault. She told military police that Brown in a period of three months had hit her on the back of the neck, bumped her in an on-post store at Camp Humphreys and then grabbed her arm after an event. No charges came of the accusations, according to Brown’s service record and documentation that he would later present to the Army Board for Correction of Military Records.
An officer in Brown’s chain of command with 8th Army conducted an internal investigation and found no evidence it happened — even discovering Brown wasn’t on post the day that he supposedly bumped the woman at a store, according to correction board documents. He was never arrested or detained or read his rights. There was no court-martial or nonjudicial punishment. Instead, Brown received a reprimand in his personnel file for unprofessional behavior. The letter scolded Brown for touching the woman’s neck and then reaching for her arm after she had told him that she did not want to be touched.
“You have exhibited poor judgment,” Brig. Gen. Patrick Donahoe wrote in the reprimand dated Aug. 21, 2019. Nowhere in the letter does he write Brown was arrested or committed a crime. Sitting in that doctor’s office, Brown realized none of this was behind him. The ordeal had left him with a criminal arrest listed on his background check with no resolution — as if he is still waiting to face judgment for a misdemeanor assault charge. “Think about the embarrassment of that,” said Brown, now 47. “I definitely wouldn’t let my children go in the military after this.”
Stars & Stripes
You can read much more at the link, but what is going on is that Soldiers accused of crimes are entered into an FBI data base. Later when it is found that no crime occurred their alleged crime is still showing in the FBI database as if it did occur and it is very difficult to get it removed.
Of course this is not something done in the civilian sector, but in the military this policy was enacted as an over correction from a mass shooting committed by an Air Force veteran in 2007. That veteran had a domestic violence conviction during his time in the Air Force that was not entered into the FBI database which allowed him to buy a gun. Why doesn’t the military just enter people into the database that are actually convicted of a crime?
Orwell would be impressed by how North Korea is using their version of the “Ministry of Truth” to scrub their state media to create a new reality for their citizens:
North Korea has removed articles with unification references from the website of its state-run media outlet, after leader Kim Jong-un called South Korea the North’s “primary foe” and vowed not to seek unification with the South.
As of Monday, a majority of the articles containing references to unification, such as “peaceful reunification,” “great national unity” and “northern half,” appear to have been deleted from the website of the North’s Korean Central News Agency.
The move came as Kim has defined inter-Korean ties as relations between “two states hostile to each other” during a year-end party meeting.
Korea Herald
You can read more at the link.
The trainee doctors are only facing a year supsension of their medical license which appears to be having little effect. According to the article of the 8,945 trainee doctors that left their worksites, only 565 have since returned to avoid the suspension:
The health ministry said Monday it started taking procedures to suspend the licenses of around 7,000 trainee doctors who have defied the government’s order to go back to work, warning that such punishment would be “irreversible.”
About 9,000 trainee doctors remained off their jobs at general hospitals for the 14th consecutive day Monday, protesting the plan to add 2,000 more medical school seats starting next year, from the current 3,058.
Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo said the government has taken steps to suspend the medical licenses of trainee doctors who left their worksites.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
