South Korean authorities have suspended the licenses of two senior doctors for allegedly inciting the weekslong walkouts by thousands of medical interns and residents that have disrupted hospital operations, one of the doctors said Monday. The suspensions are the government’s first punitive steps against physicians after doctors-in-training walked off the job last month to protest the government’s plan to sharply increase medical school admissions.
About 12,000 junior doctors have been off the job for a month, but none has received a license suspension. Observers have said it would take a few months to suspend all their licenses and that the government would likely end up suspending only strike leaders. The striking junior doctors account for less than 10% of South Korea’s 140,000 doctors.