President Lee Jae-myung is expected to quickly reorganize the government structure as he begins his term without a presidential transition committee. The medical community is paying attention to personnel and organizational changes in the relevant departments, including the replacement of Minister Cho Gyu-hong and Commissioner Oh Yu-kyung.
First, there are observations in the political and medical communities that the separation and establishment of the Ministry of Health, which the Korean Medical Association had hoped for, will not be easy. Establishing the Health Ministry was a campaign promise made by Reform Party presidential candidate Lee Jun-seok, and it was excluded from the Democratic Party of Korea’s campaign proposals. The Democratic Party included only the 'reorganization of the Ministry of Economy and Finance' in its campaign promise book.
Strong attention is also being paid to personnel changes. Minister Cho Gyu-hong and Commissioner Oh Yu-kyung have become long-serving officials as they were excluded from the list of individuals to be replaced amid prolonged conflicts with the medical community over the government’s expansion of medical school quotas. Minister Cho, who is a former bureaucrat from the Ministry of Economy and Finance, has been in office since October 2022 as the inaugural Minister of Health and Welfare under the Yoon Seok-youl administration. Commissioner Oh, who previously served as the dean of the College of Pharmacy at Seoul National University, was appointed as the Commissioner in May 2022 and has served for more than three years.
In the medical community, former Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KCDC) Administrator Jeong Eun-kyeong, a physician, is emerging as a candidate for Minister of Health and Welfare. Jeong, who led the COVID-19 response policies during the Moon Jae-in administration, joined the Democratic Party’s general election campaign committee in this presidential election. However, she noted during the election process that she would "return to academia if there is a change of administration." She has been working as a clinical professor at the Seoul National University College of Medicine since September 2023 after retiring from the KCDC.
Interest is also growing in solutions to the conflict between the government and the medical community, which has lasted for more than a year under the Yoon Seok-youl administration. The Lee Jae-myung administration is expected to establish an organization for medical reform under the presidential office or the Ministry of Health and Welfare in accordance with its campaign promises.
Previously, President Lee stated on Facebook during the election that "the addition of 2,000 medical school quotas, pushed forward without scientific evidence or preparation in the medical education field, is the beginning of the problem," adding that "discussions on essential medical policies should be restarted based on sufficient social consensus and the reflection of the opinions of those involved." He also mentioned that discussions on medical school quotas should be led by the Medical Workforce Supply Estimation Committee under the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
앞서 이 대통령은 대선 중 페이스북에 “과학적 근거도, 의료 교육 현장이 준비도 없이 밀어붙인 의대 정원 2000명 증원이 문제의 시작”이라면서 “당사자 의견이 반영되고 충분한 사회적 합의에 기초한 필수 의료 정책 논의를 다시 시작해야 한다”고 밝힌 바 있다. 의대 정원 논의는 복지부 산하 의료 인력 수급 추계 위원회(추계위)에서 주도해야 한다고도 했다.