Most prospective trainee doctors have not enrolled for internship training starting this year, with just four-point-three percent of them signing up in an apparent protest against a planned hike of medical school admissions quota.

According to the health ministry and the medical community on Wednesday, soon-to-be trainee doctors who were admitted to this year's internship program were supposed to enroll by Tuesday, but most of them did not.

Second vice health minister Park Min-soo said out of three-thousand-68 people eligible for this year's internship, just 131 registered as of Tuesday. As of last Friday, two-thousand-697 new doctors who were supposed to start internships at 100 training hospitals failed to register.
 
The medical community expects the low enrollment in internship will lead to a shortage of residents next year, which will cause disruption in medical services for at least four to five years.

In South Korea, medical graduates usually start by working at teaching hospitals as interns and completion of a one-year internship and a three- to four-year residency in a specialty are necessary steps to become a medical specialist.