A student walks past a medical school building at a university in Seoul, Wednesday. A vast majority of prospective medical school graduates have vowed not to take the qualification tests required to become doctors as a feud continues to boil over the government's decision to increase the nation's medical school admissions quota. Yonhap

A vast majority of Korea's medical students graduating next year have vowed not to take the medical license tests to become doctors as the feud continues over the government's decision to hike the nation's medical school enrollment quota.

A survey released Thursday showed 95.5 percent of medical students expected to graduate early next year said they will not give their consent for the state-run administrator of medical license exams to handle their personal information, according to the Korean Medical School Association.

Without their agreement, the test administrators cannot proceed with conducting performance and written tests for the students, scheduled from this September to January 2025, and they will remain ineligible to participate.

This will add further complications to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which is attempting to normalize the operations of medical services disrupted by a collective walkout by trainee doctors and new medical school graduates.

Earlier this week, the ministry announced that it will not take punitive action against striking trainee doctors as it was shifting its focus to filling the big labor void left by them with newly graduated doctors — a plan that cannot succeed without the new doctors.

This latest development shows a persistent and united opposition by physicians and aspiring ones. Many remain defiant despite the ministry approval that finalized an admissions quota hike of some 1,500 students for medical schools next year. Many say this would intensify competition among doctors and sap their average incomes.

In protest of the decision made in February, many medical school seniors have since been refusing to attend classes.

To placate them, the ministry offered not to take issue with their collective action as long as they return to school, saying it could allow them to graduate even if they failed to attend the required number of classes.

So far, the offers have largely failed to change their minds.

Patients and their families crowd the hallway of Asan Medical Center in southern Seoul, July 4. Newsis

After the release of the poll result, Park Dan, head of the Korean Intern Resident Association, said he "respects and supports" the will of the students and that he, too, will not return to his workplace as a trainee doctor unless their demands are met.

In an overwhelmingly united response, doctors, including more than 13,000 trainees at 211 hospitals across the country, have demanded the ministry rescind the quota hike decision — and nothing less than that.

Since most of the trainees left their workplaces in protest of the decision, the operations of hospitals have been partially disrupted. Many patients have seen their appointments for surgery or other treatments canceled or delayed.

According to the ministry, its center set up for complaints after the collective walkout by the trainee doctors on Feb. 19 has received more than 3,800 reports from patients nationwide so far.

At Thursday's press briefing, a ministry official once again called on the trainees to return to work and vowed to make its utmost efforts to speedily recover the operations of the nation's health care system.