Korean Intern Resident Association Publishes Protected Training Time Report
The Korean Intern Resident Association published a research report revealing that 73.1% of surveyed resident physicians experience zero protected training time amid routine clinical duties and unceasing calls, according to the source.
Survey Shows Most Residents Lack Protected Training Time
The investigation combined domestic and international literature reviews, consultations with specialists from the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, and Japan, a resident survey, and a workshop involving 14 clinical training supervisors. Online survey responses gathered from late August across 13 medical and surgical specialties yielded 346 valid replies regarding actual protected hours.
Among respondents, 70.2% reported they had never even heard the term “protected training time,” while only 10.5% experienced it regularly. Although the median formal education time reported on paper was two hours per week, the actual protection rate calculated across 329 valid responses stood at just 33.5%. To address this deficit, 80.2% of respondents called for training institutions to operate protected time as an official institutional system, and 76.0% urged that minimum standards be embedded into training policies and evaluation criteria.
When asked what support factors are most crucial for operational success, 67.8% of respondents selected securing replacement personnel, while 62.5% expressed deep concern that failing support systems would improperly shift burdens onto fellow residents and clinical fellows. To counter these systemic strains, the research team proposed the Korean-style Standard Operation Model (K-PT), merging common minimum standards with specialty-specific operational methods. The eight common criteria include scheduling within regular working hours, securing three to four hours weekly, blocking non-emergency treatments and calls while explicitly noting patient safety exceptions, designating task replacements, matching training objectives with educational content, securing supervisor participation, organizing remedial learning, and recording or correcting protection failures.
For internal medicine and related specialties, the researchers suggested a fixed half-day educational slot once per week, whereas surgical specialties would operate around surgical schedules alongside half-day education and technical skill practice days. These proposals do not yet constitute finalized training obligations. Because the survey relied entirely on voluntary responses from 13 specialty categories, the findings carry inherent limitations when generalized across the entire resident population.
Association Calls for State Funding to Secure Training
Association President Lee Hee-ju emphasized the core contradiction in current hospital workflows, stating that even if educational hours are scheduled, they cease to be guaranteed educational time for residents if interruptions from calls and clinical duties remain unchecked. Pointing directly to the root operational hurdles, the association called for active state financial backing to secure both adequate replacement personnel and stable training budgets.