S.Korea ready to revise contentious medical school admissions plan, officials say

SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea's presidential office said on Friday it was open to revising a plan to increase medical school admissions which has triggered months of protests by doctors nationwide.

"The discussion on medical school quotas can start from scratch if the medical community presents a reasonable suggestion," the office said in a statement in which it also urged the medical community to discuss options.

The government has said the plan will not be revoked.

Thousands of trainee doctors, including interns and residents, walked off the job in February to protest the plan to increase medical student numbers by 2,000 a year starting next year to address what authorities project will be a severe shortage of medical professionals.

South Korea is one of the world's fastest ageing societies. Earlier this year, medical schools finalised their admission quotas for 2025 which was up nearly 1,500 compared to the previous year.

According to a Gallup Korea poll released on Friday, more than half of those polled support increasing medical school admissions in 2025.

But 64% of those polled also said the government was poorly handling the situation, and that President Yoon Suk Yeol's disapproval rating was at 67%.

The health ministry earlier this week said it was deploying military doctors to meet the shortage of medical staff but disputed a warning by some physicians that the system was on the verge of collapse.

(Reporting by Hyunsu Yim; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Raju Gopalakrishnan and Miral Fahmy)