1. Persistent faculty attrition in Korean medical colleges
The number of medical college faculty members resigning from teaching or university hospitals has surged since early 2024, following the Korean government’s announcement to increase the nationwide medical student quota [
1,
2]. Faculty members who resigned reported loss of professional fulfillment and lack of time to conduct research [
3,
4]. Among a total of 855 faculty members of Korean medical colleges, 66.3% experienced cynicism and 34% experienced emotional exhaustion, which led to attempts to resign (47.1%) and depression (38.3%) [
5]. However, this surge is not merely a sudden consequence of the above government policy. Faculty attrition has been a persistent issue for years, specifically in non-capital areas, where this problem emerged earlier and has proven more severe [
4,
6].
Although no comprehensive study has clarified the root causes behind this faculty exodus, existing media coverage and partial surveys have identified several contributing factors. One reason for this may be burnout. In 2022, 829 faculty members completed a nationwide survey to examine burnout levels, and 92.4% of them reported a lack of personal accomplishment, while 66.3% exhibited depersonalization [
7]. Second, physicians with board certifications were reported to prefer working at private clinics or hospitals over teaching or university hospitals, which offer better pay and more favorable working conditions [
8]. This tendency can be confirmed with the findings of a previous study that showed 49% of Korean medical college professors struggled with a lack of worklife balance [
9]. Third, media reports have highlighted that newly licensed physicians often avoid entering specialties categorized as “essential healthcare” [
10,
11], including fields such as emergency medicine, trauma surgery, critical care, obstetrics, and pediatrics [
12].
Faculty attrition in Korean medical colleges must be understood as the result of both long-standing structural challenges and more recent developments. The recent expansion of medical college admissions has brought heightened visibility to the issue, but it has emerged on top of enduring concerns such as burnout, limited career satisfaction, and work–life imbalance [
1,
2]. For effective and lasting solutions, it is essential to distinguish between these chronic drivers and the newer pressures that have intensified or revealed themselves in the current environment. Doing so requires systematic and sustained monitoring, rather than fragmented observations. We therefore propose the establishment of a nationwide faculty cohort system, which would provide continuous, objective data to support evidence-based strategies for sustaining the medical education workforce.
2. Why faculty matter: functions and symbolic value
Faculty members of medical colleges fulfill several functions that are widely recognized as essential to society. According to a recent study [
13], these include (1) teaching and training future healthcare professionals, (2) providing high-quality care to patients with severe illnesses, and (3) conducting research that advances clinical practice and academic medicine. Building on these three functions, we propose a fourth function: (4) by caring for others and nurturing future physicians, faculty members symbolically embody the centrality of care in human society. Therefore, they must not be treated as disposable tools within healthcare or educational systems, but as professionals whose roles deserve institutional respect and protection. It is this lack of symbolic recognition—the place faculty members deserve in our social value system—that disheartened even physicians who support the public nature of medicine, when a senior official of the Ministry of Health and Welfare referred to them as “public goods” [
14]. Nevertheless, no comprehensive investigation has yet been conducted on medical college faculty turnover in Korea. A widely cited figure from 2024—indicating an over 1.5-fold increase in resignations at a national university hospital—was not derived from official statistics, but on a request made by a councilman’s office [
3].
3. Expected effects from a faculty cohort system
The employment status, turnover, and resignation patterns of medical college faculty must be captured and analyzed in an integrated and systematic manner through a faculty cohort system by the relevant authorities or academic leadership. In other words, the system we conceptualize collects information comprehensively and consistently such as socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., sex, age at appointment, region of origin, marital status), educational background (e.g., major, final academic degree at appointment, clinical experience), and employment data (e.g., types of employment, length of service, reason for resignation, where to work in the future). Currently, the Korean Association of Medical Colleges operates a basic medical education database [
15], but it is not the cohort system we suggest. The dataset aggregates the number of full-time faculty based on position (e.g., professor, assistant professor), department, medical doctor status, and whether they are graduates of the affiliated institutions [
15]. Likewise, it does not encompass various information related to human resources and development, which limits its utilization in several ways. Such a cohort system would be a powerful asset for the Korean medical education system for the following reasons.
First, with reliable data, it is possible to identify the most vulnerable sectors that require urgent intervention. For example, faculty members of medical colleges in non-capital areas are more likely to quit their jobs and move to non-teaching hospitals [
16,
17]. Those who leave may want to educate their children in prestigious school districts, earn more money by opening up or practicing private practices, or work in more stable teaching hospitals [
8,
18], whereas those who remain may struggle to fill a workforce vacuum in patient care. These realities shape the daily experience of Korean medical education. The faculty cohort system will show the severity and scope of these disruptions visibly, not only to the public and policymakers but also to medical professionals. During a healthcare crisis, the weakest parts of the system are often the first to collapse. However, there is still no faculty cohort approach to capture these changes systematically.
Second, a faculty cohort system will generate robust evidence to support workforce-related policy decisions in medical education. With accurate and systematic data, comprehending the scale and complexity of national issues related to medical resources is challenging. In the past 2 years, the process of policy decision-making in the absence of robust data, which can significantly destabilize the healthcare system, has been observed. Nevertheless, the responsibility for data collection remains in the hands of government bodies, which have made statements suggesting that medical college faculty can be easily replaced by individuals who have not been trained in the integrated roles of education, research, and clinical care specific to faculty positions [
19]. A rigorous faculty cohort system would generate reliable, politically independent data that would be difficult to distort or misuse. Such data are essential for developing sound and evidence-based policies, not only for medical education and workforce planning but also for restoring public trust and ensuring long-term stability in the healthcare system.
Finally, collecting data on faculty provides leaders with insights for making informed and evidence-based decisions about nurturing the next generation of medical scholars and clinicians [
20]. The examination may address issues unique to faculty management in academic medicine and identify opportunities for improvement in talent management and organizational culture perspectives [
21]. In this process, medical college faculty members may regain respect as priceless human resources, which they have always been. Examination through the faculty cohort system may serve as a reminder to faculty members that they are irreplaceable, which is a symbolic representation that empowers institutions to improve the faculty climate and retention through self-awareness.
4. International experiences in faculty tracking
Other countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, have regularly collected data on medical school faculty retention and incorporated it into evidence-based policy. The Association of American Medical Colleges Faculty Roster, established in 1966, is recognized as the most prominent and dedicated national tracking system for faculty members of medical schools [
22]. It collects comprehensive data, including demographics, educational background, and employment data (trajectory of promotion, attrition, retirement, and so forth) [
23]. The data can therefore be used not only by the association and medical schools but also by federal agencies, researchers, search committees, and policymakers. The United Kingdom does not have centralized a national cohort system such as the Faculty Roster but uses several interconnected systems: the Medical Schools Council representing medical schools [
24], the General Medical Council independently regulating doctors [
25], the United Kingdom Medical Education Database linking various data on physicians’ career pathways [
26], and other individual medical schools’ internal systems. Finally, most of Canada’s data are derived from the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada and are complemented by individual medical schools’ internal systems [
27].
Table 1 compares the systems of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Drawing from these international experiences, Korea can develop a faculty cohort system tailored to its unique needs and institutional landscape. As part of this effort, we propose launching a National Faculty Mobility Study, which would leverage the cohort database to analyze trends in faculty movement, regional imbalances, and long-term retention patterns across Korean medical colleges.
5. Toward a nationwide faculty cohort system in Korea
It is thus evident that a nationwide faculty cohort system for medical faculty is urgently necessary. The leadership that develops and leads the system can be the Korean Association of Medical Colleges, as seen in the United States [
22], the Korean Institute of Medical Education and Evaluation, similar to Canada’s case [
27], or a new entity. The effort for the establishment of the system requires significant resources, coordination, and long-term commitment; it must be approached with deliberate planning but with great care and precision. The initial challenges, such as standardizing data collection across diverse institutions and ensuring privacy safeguards, are real but not insurmountable. With determined yet collaborative leadership—one that looks beyond competition among deans and commits to shared observations of systemic trends—this infrastructure can be built swiftly and rigorously.
Entrusted with the care of human life, the medical faculty carries out a noble mission. However, the mission loses its meaning when those who fulfill it are treated as disposable. If care is at the heart of what faculty do, they must also care for those who teach, heal, and guide the next generation. Building a system that protects and respects medical faculty members is not an administrative task; it is a moral obligation that defines the character of the professional community. Only if faculty members are managed as valuable resources for nurturing the next generation will the Korean healthcare system survive, which indicates a significant implication for the importance of building a faculty cohort system for sustainable medical education.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the Korean Association of Medical Colleges for providing information from the basic medical education database.
Funding
This work was supported by the Dong-A University research fund (2025).
Conflicts of interest
No potential conflict of interestrelevant to this article was reported.
Author contributions
CJK conceptualized the study concept and design. MJK and CJK investigated the literature. MJK and CJK wrote the original draft, reviewed, edited, and approved the final manuscript.
Table 1.Comparison of Three Countries’ Medical School Faculty Data Collection
Table 1.
|
Country |
United States |
United Kingdom |
Canada |
|
Leading organization |
Association of American Medical Colleges |
Medical Schools Council |
Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada |
|
Scope |
Liaison Committee on Medical Education-accredited medical schools |
All medical schools |
All medical schools |
|
Data |
• Demographics (age, gender, race/ethnicity) |
• Demographics (age, gender) |
• Demographics (gender, diversity) |
|
• Academic rank |
• Academic rank |
• Academic rank |
|
• Tenure |
• Specialty |
• Tenure |
|
• Department |
• National Health Service affiliation |
• Discipline |
|
• Employment status |
• Vacancies |
• Research activity |
|
• Career trajectory (promotion, attrition, retirement) |
|
• Clinical roles |
|
Primary uses |
Human resource planning; diversity monitoring; faculty careers research |
Identifying workforce shortages; workforce feedback; diversity monitoring |
Human resource planning; accreditation; tracking recruitment and retention |
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