South Korea’s Yoon vows not to back down in the face of doctors’ strike over medical school plan

By HYUNG-JIN KIM
Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s president has vowed not to back down in the face of vehement protests by doctors seeking to derail his plan to drastically increase medical school admissions. In a nationally televised speech on Monday, President Yoon Suk Yeol called the walkouts by doctors “an illegal collective action” that poses “a grave threat to our society.” About 12,000 medical interns and residents in South Korea have been on strike for six weeks, causing hundreds of cancelled surgeries and other treatments at university hospitals. Yoon says that increasing the number of doctors is a “state project that we can’t further delay,” citing the country’s rapidly aging population.