Halted medical education and medical residents’ training in Korea, journal metrics, and appreciation to reviewers and volunteers

Article information

J Educ Eval Health Prof. 2025;22.1

Publication date (electronic) : 2025 January 13

doi : https://doi.org/10.3352/jeehp.2025.22.1

Sun Huh^,

Institute of Medical Education, Hallym University College of Medicine, Chuncheon, Korea

Editor: A Ra Cho, The Catholic University of Korea, Korea

^*Corresponding email: shuh@hallym.ac.kr

Received 2025 January 2; Accepted 2025 January 2.

A break in medical education and medical resident training in Korea

On the night of December 3, 2024, just after 10 PM, television was abruptly interrupted by a Korean presidential emergency briefing announcing martial law. The ensuing English and Korean versions of the proclamation are available in Supplement 1. Out of 6 items in the martial law proclamation, the 5th was especially alarming:

Upon reading this, I was disturbed because as of December 3, 2024, there were no striking medical professionals; nonetheless, the proclamation threatened punishment under martial law if they did not “return to work” within 48 hours. Fortunately, the martial law was rejected by the National Assembly of Korea on December 4, 2024, and no further action was taken.

Why was this baseless item included in the martial law proclamation? On February 20, 2024, most medical residents in Korea began to resign from their training hospitals after the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced an increase in the medical school admission quota by 2,000—from 3,058 to 5,058—starting in 2025 [1]. In the absence of dialogue with the medical profession, this abrupt increase was imposed with neither consensus nor tangible support. Some residents found new jobs or voluntarily worked in various facilities after resigning from training hospitals. Moreover, the majority of medical students submitted formal leave-of-absence requests to their universities [2]. The Ministry of Health and Welfare insisted that the increase was justified based on 3 reports [3-5]; however, the authors of those reports contended that their data could not serve as the basis for such an abrupt increase [1].

Last semester, I taught only one student in my parasitology class, since all the other students were on leave of absence. This phenomenon impacted the number of applicants for the Korean Medical Licensing Examination (KMLE). In the 2024 administration of the clinical practice examination, 347 candidates participated, of whom 266 passed, yielding a 76.7% success rate. For the written examination scheduled in January 2025, only 310 individuals registered—about 1/10 the typical enrollment figure [6]. It is saddening for educators not to encounter the students or residents they would normally teach.

I hope the current issues regarding the medical school admission quota will be smoothly resolved after dialogue between the government officers and the medical profession based on scientific evidence. Moreover, the government must issue a sincere apology for the proclamation that threatened medical residents with oppressive rhetoric and pledge to prevent any recurrence. Additionally, a strategy is urgently required to address and heal the fear these individuals have endured.

Highlights in the 2024 issue

In 2024, the Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions (JEEHP) published 41 articles, including 5 editorial materials. Similar to 2023 [7], many studies focused on the performances of generative artificial intelligence (AI). Topics included AI-based medical imaging evaluation, performance on simulated European Board of Interventional Radiology examinations, standardized urology knowledge, and the Japanese National License Examination for Pharmacists in 2022. An additional study described the development of continuing professional development plans for graduate radiographers using ChatGPT-4o [8]. Despite adhering to broad regulatory standards, ChatGPT-4o exhibited limitations in addressing individualized and context-specific needs.

Kim et al. [9] contributed a valuable review article on the legality and appropriateness of keeping Korean Medical Licensing Examination items confidential. They concluded that exam items qualify as non-public information under the Korea Official Information Disclosure Act, allowing the Korea Health Personnel Licensing Examination Institute to maintain confidentiality to ensure fairness and efficiency.

Another noteworthy contribution addresses the Dr. LEE Jong-wook Fellowship Program implemented by the Korea Foundation for International Healthcare in memory of the late WHO Secretary-General. Since 2007, the program has guided 1,504 practitioners from 30 nations, enabling them to gain advanced Korean medical knowledge. Oh and Yoon [10] developed a new performance evaluation indicator for assessing this fellowship’s long-term educational impacts through Delphi surveys.

What will be the next topics?

It has been 20 years since I took on the role of editorship in 2005. The journal has been promoted internationally from the standpoint of diverse authors’ countries, indexing in international literature databases, and citation frequencies in the indexing databases. Furthermore, appropriate study designs and the corresponding reporting guidelines have been strictly required since 2020 to maintain scientific soundness. The primary concern in accepting manuscripts is their practical usefulness in health professions education. If educators and students can benefit in any way from journal articles, I and all editorial board members and staff will be happy.

The primary scope of the journal is the licensing examinations for health professions throughout the world. However, it is challenging to find those topics in the literature databases. This may originate from the difficulty in accessing the results of licensing examinations in each country. Therefore, JEEHP is unique in this field. The second concern is the adoption of measurement theory within the educational framework of health professions. JEEHP has frequently recruited manuscripts on this topic. Many other articles are for measurement tools development, program evaluation, and introduction of new technologies. The recent most striking topics have been applications of the metaverse and generative artificial intelligence.

What will be the next hot and useful topics for the future of health professions education? With technical developments, virtual reality through smart glasses will become more user-friendly. Deep learning and large language models have already emerged as common subjects in health professions education. Students should understand and use those tools without difficulties. Furthermore, deep learning and large language models should be utilized throughout the learning process.

The timeline for the availability of quantum computing remains uncertain. However, once it becomes accessible, the integration of quantum computing with deep learning is expected to significantly transform various fields, including drug development [11], radiological diagnosis, tailored chemotherapy, and genomic analysis [12]. To prepare for the future medical environment, should we consider introducing the concept and use of quantum computing in health professions curricula? Although it remains a dream to have quantum computing at our desks, scientific development can soon break through the present limitations of a quantum computing environment. The editorial board welcomes submissions of manuscripts on these new topics and encourages contributions on any other special topics relevant to the journal.

Journal metrics and statistics of the 2024 issue

After receiving the first official Journal Impact Factor (JIF) of 4.4 in June 2023, JEEHP’s 2023 JIF reached 9.3 in June 2024 [7], the highest ranking in the scientific education category. The Citescore 2024 by Elsevier was 15.5 on December 31, 2024, with most citations concentrated in articles published from 2021 to 2023 (Table 1).

Table 1.

Highly cited articles in the Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions published from 2021 to 2023 [cited 2024 Dec 31]

According to these citation results, it is an urgent priority for the editor to recruit highly citable research articles, even though review articles generally receive more citations in most journals.

Fig. 1 shows the authors’ countries of 36 articles in the 2024 issue, from which 3 editorials, 1 erratum, and 1 corrigendum were excluded. The proportion of articles from Asian countries was 58.3%, which aligns with the journal’s regional scope.

Fig. 1.

Authors’ countries of 36 articles published in the Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions in 2024. Five editorial materials were excluded.

Journal statistics for 2024 are presented in Table 2. The data for 2024 were somewhat different from the 2023 data [7]. The number of unsolicited manuscripts increased from 261 in 2023 to 337. The acceptance rate of unsolicited manuscripts decreased from 11.9% in 2023 to 8.8%. The editorial office has done its best to minimize the rejection rate of peer-reviewed manuscripts. However, the acceptance rate of peer-reviewed manuscripts decreased from 80.6% in 2023 to 74.4%. Those changes in journal metrics were inevitable since the publication budget (space) is limited.

Table 2.

Journal statistics of manuscripts submitted to the Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions from January 1 to December 31, 2024

Appreciation to reviewers and volunteers

In 2024, 100 reviewers were invited from 24 countries, listed below. Without their invaluable time and expertise, this journal could not maintain its quality. We extend our deepest gratitude for their support:

If any reviewers in 2024 are not listed here, it is the editor’s responsibility. Please contact us to notify us of any omissions.

Supplementary materials

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