Final election for the new chairman of the medical association...No matter who you are, you're a hardliner.

[Anchor]
The final vote to select the next president of the Korean Medical Association, the only legal doctors' group, will be concluded today (8th).

Both candidates Kim Taek-woo and Joo Su-ho, who made it to the finals, are considered hard-liners, and the medical community is expected to continue to protest against the government's medical reform policy.

Reporter Lee Moon-seok's report.

[Reporter]
The new president of the Korean Medical Association, representing 140,000 doctors nationwide, will be elected today.

It will be confirmed by a two-day runoff until today,
Kim Taek-woo and Joo Su-ho, who ranked first and second in the first round of voting
, are classified as hardliners in the government.

Candidate Kim led the medical struggle by serving as the chairman of the emergency committee of the Medical Association in the early days of last year's legislative conflict.

He was suspended for three months for his involvement in the collective action of his major.

[Kim Taek-woo / Presidential candidate of the Korean Medical Association: We sincerely ask the government once again to temporarily suspend the second measure of the TF for medical reform. Since the president is in a vacancy, I think it is right to temporarily suspend all policies that the president has pursued.

Joo, who served as the 35th president of the Korean Medical Association, once again challenged himself to become the head of the association.

Again, the government is insisting on reviewing the origin of the policy to increase medical schools.

[Joo Su-ho / Candidate for president of the Korean Medical Association: (The number of 1,500 people increased in 2025) was reduced by 500 every three years from 2027 to 2028, 2029, or I think the only way to solve the current situation is to reduce the number by 300 over five years to zero base 1,500 people....]

The new chairman will lead the medical association until April 30, 2027, the remaining term of former chairman Lim Hyun-taek, who was impeached amid controversy over his rude talk.

Although the legislative conflict has been over the years, medical students have decided to take an additional leave of absence, and the attendance rate for training hospital majors is still only 8.7%.

No matter who is elected, it seems difficult to find an exit from the legislative conflict for the time being, as hard-liners have become representative of the medical community.

I'm YTN's Lee Munseok.