Controversy is growing over a temporary measure that allows doctors running their own clinics to work second jobs at other medical institutions, a step the government took to fill gaps in essential and regional care created by its standoff with the medical community. Contrary to the government's intent, a substantial share of these doctors have taken posts at oriental medicine and long-term care hospitals, and at institutions in the Seoul metropolitan area. Critics say the government has effectively given clinic owners a justification for moonlighting. With the Ministry of Health and Welfare reviewing revisions to the relevant rules, some argue the system needs to be overhauled to meet its policy goals.
A total of 136 doctors who run their own clinics worked at medical institutions they did not establish between March 20, 2024, and Aug. 7, 2026, according to data submitted by the ministry to Rep. Kim Yoon of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee, on the 7th. Of those, 119 were specialists and 17 were general practitioners. The cases of dual employment totaled 221.
By type of institution, general hospitals accounted for the largest share at 69 cases, or 31.2%. Hospitals followed with 62 cases, or 28.1%, then tertiary general hospitals with 36 cases, or 16.3%, long-term care hospitals with 27 cases, or 12.2%, oriental medicine hospitals with 20 cases, or 9.0%, clinics with four cases, or 1.8%, and psychiatric hospitals with three cases, or 1.4%. Work at oriental medicine and long-term care hospitals came to 47 cases, or 21.3% of the total.
A clear concentration in the Seoul metropolitan area also emerged. Of the 221 cases, institutions in Gyeonggi Province accounted for the most at 58, followed by Seoul with 48 and Incheon with 12. Work sites in the Seoul metropolitan area totaled 118 cases, or 53.4% of the total. In 103 cases, or 46.6% of the total, doctors whose own clinics are in Seoul, Gyeonggi or Incheon worked at another institution within the metropolitan area. The reverse pattern accounted for just 14 cases, or 6.3%.
Amid criticism that the policy is failing to serve its purpose, resistance is also mounting within parts of the medical community. Opposition has been particularly strong from groups including the Seoul Medical Association over a measure introduced in May this year that allows clinic owners to work at institutions established by medical welfare social cooperatives, a step the government took to ease shortages in regional care. "The name social cooperative alone cannot confer the status of a regional essential care institution," the Seoul Medical Association said. "If a structure in which a particular organization connects and allocates patients and doctors expands, medical welfare cooperatives will establish themselves as a medical platform, while local primary care institutions will be pushed out of their own communities."
"To achieve the policy's goals, the essential care specialties in which clinic owners may hold second jobs need to be defined more precisely," an official in the medical community said. "The compensation system will also have to be fixed." In October 2024, the ministry designated nine essential specialties — including internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, and anesthesiology and pain medicine — as the fields in which clinic owners may work at hospital-level institutions.
