So… South Korea is threatening to make their doctor strike permanent?
Can you train doctors more quickly than you can train air traffic controllers?
Some short term pain to avoid long term total collapse. Not every doctor is going to take the hit. Not only would it mean a massive reduction in income, and massive sunk costs, but it would be a distressing blow to their identities. These people "are doctors", that is the core of their very self-image. In a society like South Korea, it would also be a massive, life-altering change in social prestige.
It sounds like there's some room for nuance here, and of course I'm somewhat sensitive to the history of government use of force against organised labour in South Korea, but it's difficult to see this as anything other than these doctors holding patients hostage to artificially suppress competition, and thereby inflate their pay packets, and it seems like everybody is losing, even in some ways the doctors themselves. It's hard to read the article and not be left with at least some feeling that you'd be about ready to see some of them start going to jail if you lived there.
It seems like they are using those students to depress wages already and just intend to do it more. The article describes internships as a way to get very cheap labour, with hospitals having up to 40% of staff being students.
"The trainee doctors are protesting government plans to admit drastically more medical students to university each year, to increase the number of doctors in the system"
Eff them... I might support strikes in other cases, but to purely limit number of qualified workers, just no... Be better than those doctors and you keep the job.