Medical professors have urged the government to engage in dialogue with trainee doctors without sticking to its plan to increase the medical school admissions quota, saying that many medical professors are considering stepping down.

The Medical Professors Association of Korea (MPAK) held an emergency plenary meeting for over three hours from 5 p.m. Saturday to discuss medical students' possible failures from their leave of absence and the recent series of resignations by medical professors.

After the meeting, Kim Chang-soo, the head of the MPAK emergency steering committee, told KBS that the participants discussed those issues, but they did not make any decisions or issue any specific messages for the government.

Kim, however, stressed that the government must persuade medical residents without the precondition that it can never give up on the planned increase of two thousand students.

Kim also said that there are quite a few medical professors planning to resign, adding that some professors said the MPAK should send a message that it may take action in case of medical students' failures from their leave of absence and punishment for trainee doctors.

The MPAK is an organization comprised of representatives from the professors' associations of 33 medical schools across the country. Saturday's meeting marks the first of its kind since trainee doctors resigned en masse.