The Korean Academy of Medical Sciences (KAMS) announced Thursday that it has established a dedicated body to serve as the control tower for resident training education and will begin full-scale operations.
The academy plans to hold a launch ceremony for the Resident Training Institute on November 11 at the Westin Josun Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul, and will begin overhauling the overall structure of resident training education.
The medical community has long pointed out that major tertiary general hospitals, including university hospitals, have been cutting costs by deploying large numbers of residents, whose labor costs are lower than those of professors or specialists. KAMS intends to restructure the intern and resident training systems, which have been operated separately by specialty and by training hospital, around a competency-based framework, and to upgrade the integrated platform and evaluation system that will support this. The goal is to move away from the existing apprenticeship-style education and build a system that clearly defines how the clinical experience performed by residents translates into specific professional competencies, and that can systematically evaluate and certify those competencies. Working closely with 26 specialty societies, the academy will build a 'Korean-style training education platform hub' tailored to domestic circumstances.
The launch ceremony will be attended by officials from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, KAMS executives and the 26 specialty societies, the Korean Medical Association, the Korean Hospital Association, the National Academy of Medicine of Korea, the Korean Association of Medical Colleges, the Korea Association of Training Hospitals, the Korean Institute of Medical Education and Evaluation, and the Korean Intern Resident Association, among other major related organizations.
"The Resident Training Institute is not simply the creation of a new organization but a starting point for fundamentally redesigning Korea's resident training education system," said Lee Jin-woo, president of KAMS. "Centered on the Resident Training Institute, we will build a Korean-style training education model by establishing a balance between education and labor, a competency-based training curriculum, in-training evaluation, and a sustainable training infrastructure."
