Resident doctors lose appeal in lawsuit over medical school quota protest resignations

Resident doctors who sued the government after it blocked their resignations during the 2024 medical school enrollment dispute have lost their case again on appeal.

Civil Appeals Division 5-3 of the Seoul Central District Court, presided over by judges Heo Yong-gu, Jang Jun-hyeon and Yeom Gi-chang, ruled Saturday against two resident doctors — identified only as A and another plaintiff — who had filed claims for damages and severance pay against their training hospital, Daewoo Hagwon, and the state. The ruling upheld the first-instance decision.

The court said the plaintiffs' grounds for appeal did not differ significantly from their arguments at trial, and that the lower court's judgment was justified.

The plaintiffs were among a group of resident doctors who submitted mass resignations in February 2024 to protest the government's plan to expand medical school enrollment. The government responded by issuing orders under the Medical Service Act requiring them to maintain patient care and barring hospitals from accepting their resignations for roughly four months.

In August of that year, A and the other plaintiff filed suit, arguing the resignation ban violated their freedom to choose an occupation and that they had suffered financial losses because they were unable to work at other hospitals while the orders remained in effect.

In October last year, the trial court ruled against them, finding that the government had made a professional judgment that the mass resignations posed a serious risk to public health and that there were no grounds to consider that judgment unreasonable.

The court added that no other appropriate means appeared available to effectively control the medical care vacuum and the resulting risks to public health under the National Health Act, other than using administrative orders to preemptively prevent the mass resignations and the departure of resident doctors from clinical settings.