Children wait for influenza vaccinations and medical consultations at a pediatric clinic in Michuhol-gu, Incheon, as the national flu vaccination program — starting with children and pregnant women — gets underway. [Yonhap]
Children wait for influenza vaccinations and medical consultations at a pediatric clinic in Michuhol-gu, Incheon, as the national flu vaccination program — starting with children and pregnant women — gets underway. [Yonhap]

Only 113 pediatric residents are currently training at hospitals across the country, and about eight in 10 of them work in Seoul, fueling growing concerns over care gaps in pediatric medicine outside the capital.

So Byong-hun, a Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker on the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee, said Tuesday that data obtained from the Ministry of Health and Welfare showed just 113 pediatric residents were on staff at training hospitals nationwide as of this month.

That figure represents an 80.9 percent drop from 593 in 2021 — a collapse over just five years.

The sheer drop in numbers is alarming enough, but the geographic concentration makes the situation worse. Of the 113 residents, 89 — or 78.8 percent — work in Seoul.

Six metropolitan cities and provinces — Gangwon Province, North Gyeongsang Province, South Gyeongsang Province, South Jeolla Province, Sejong and Incheon — have no pediatric residents at all.

Low pay, grueling workloads and the legal liability that comes with medical accidents are widely cited as reasons fewer doctors are choosing the specialty.

The medical community particularly points to the heightened fear of criminal prosecution following a 2017 infant death case at Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital as a major deterrent.

In December 2017, four newborns receiving treatment in the neonatal intensive care unit at the hospital died of sepsis, and the medical staff were detained. After more than five years of investigation and trial, they were acquitted.

The prolonged legal ordeal sent the pediatric residency application rate tumbling from 112.1 percent in 2017 to 25.5 percent in 2023.

The 2024 doctors' strike deepened the crisis further. At the height of the standoff that year, 194 of 236 eligible residents — roughly eight in 10 — submitted resignations and left their posts.

Recruiting new residents has remained difficult ever since.

In the 2025 first-year pediatric residency recruitment round, 52 of 61 training hospitals nationwide — 85.2 percent — filled zero positions.

The 61 hospitals sought to fill 199 slots but secured only 27 applicants, a 13.6 percent fill rate. Asan Medical Center, with 10 recruits, and Seoul National University Hospital, with eight, together accounted for more than half of all placements.

Even major regional national university hospitals — including those affiliated with Kyungpook National University, Pusan National University, Jeonbuk National University, Chungbuk National University, Kangwon National University and Jeju National University — failed to recruit a single pediatric resident.

"The fact that only 113 pediatric residents remain nationwide and that 85 percent of training hospitals could not take in even one new resident goes beyond a collapse of the regional pediatric safety net — it is a national disaster," So said. "We must put in place effective measures, including state funding for pediatric residency training costs and direct fiscal support to retain subspecialty physicians."


husn7@heraldcorp.com