Imagine that, by 2050, Korea becomes a country of medical doctors. Even in a small town, you could find so many doctors’ clinics and sometimes even a hospital, as well. It all looks so convenient, but something is not quite right.

Since well before the early 2020s, many Korean parents have wanted their children to become medical doctors, as the job market is unstable and highly constricted. In their eyes, doctors enjoy both a stable, high-income career and social prestige. There is also no retirement age for doctors, so they can open a clinic until their health declines from old age. It is no wonder, then, that sending their children to medical school has been fashionable among Korean parents for the past few decades.

However, this social phenomenon has created a plethora of problems. For example, to produce more doctors, there must be an increase in the number of medical school places. However, as we have seen from the Yoon administration’s futile attempts, it is by no means easy to do this. In addition, medical school fever has become a serious social problem in Korea, as all the high school students exclusively rush into medicine, ignoring a wide host of other fields and possibilities.

Moreover, not everybody can be successful at medical school. Indeed, quite a few frustrated students have reportedly dropped out of medical school and changed their major to one that suits their aptitudes. In addition, to become a good medical doctor, you should have a strong sense of duty and ethics, as symbolized by the Hippocratic oath. Medical school is not for those who pursue money or celebrity.

Another problem is that Korea is beginning to suffer from a decrease in population, and this is set to continue for a long time. Under the circumstances, doctors will face stiff competition to secure patients. Naturally, this once highly esteemed, well-paid occupation will no longer retain its long-standing prestige.

As a result, some doctors have chosen to quit their jobs and seek political careers instead, becoming National Assemblymen or high-ranking government officials. But then another problem occurs. Since medical doctors, together with prosecutors and judges, seldom have a chance to visit or live overseas for an extensive period, many of them do not know the world well enough to run a country. As a result, they are not skilled at navigating the country safely through severe political storms in the international community.

The surplus of doctors in Korea also creates artificial intelligence-related problems. In many other countries, experts predict that artificial intelligence will have replaced human doctors by 2050. Given those projections, it is soon going to become a worldwide phenomenon and common practice that AI doctors perform surgeries or treat patients. In Korea, however, patients will continue to heavily depend on human doctors, even though AI is known to be much more accurate, efficient and faster than their human counterparts.

Not being able to foresee such drastic changes in the future, Korea’s best brains have flocked to conventional medicine only, not in combination with AI or other cutting-edge technologies. Meanwhile, engineering, natural sciences and the humanities have been left out in the cold. Consequently, Korea comes to resemble an outdated, manually operated aircraft struggling to achieve takeoff, while other countries are like supersonic jets flying high with fully automated pilot systems.

Now, we have belatedly realized that we should have urged our children to major in computer science, instead of medicine. If we had, Korea could have been the foremost country of AI by now. In fact, artificial intelligence is not an isolated technology or independent academic discipline. Rather, it is an interdisciplinary field that incorporates all other areas. Besides, just like doctors, distinguished AI scientists, too, could earn decent salaries and enjoy fame. Our renowned AI scientists could also be decorated by the government or even honored with a Nobel Prize in the future.

That is why implementing a Department of AI or a College of AI at our universities is much more urgent than simply changing the names of 10 local universities to Seoul National University. Names or titles are hollow and shallow. Thus, we should value substantial things, rather than simply sharing the name of a prime university. Names and signboards do not make us great. The alteration of our consciousness and perception does.

Instead of a parochial myopia, therefore, we should have a global mindset and an international perspective, so we can broaden the scope of our vision to see wider and deeper to discover what lies ahead of us. We should stop pursuing a career as a doctor for money and recognition. Instead of joining the paper chase for luxurious titles, we should seek more valuable and substantial things in life.

In 2025, we still have time to stop this undesirable trend and alter the course of our grim future that we will otherwise inevitably face in 2050.

Kim Seong-kon

Kim Seong-kon is a professor emeritus of English at Seoul National University and a visiting scholar at Dartmouth College. The views expressed here are the writer's own. -- Ed.


khnews@heraldcorp.com