The government said it could administratively prohibit resigned interns and residents from obtaining medical licenses in the U.S.

On Friday, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said so at a regular briefing of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters to deal with junior physicians’ collective walkout.

Currently, some trainee doctors who resigned from their teaching hospitals say they will not practice medicine in Korea if they receive the administrative penalty but will obtain a U.S. medical license and practice in the U.S., medical sources said.

In response, the government said that the license suspension for collective resignation could prevent the applicant from obtaining a U.S. medical license.

To become a doctor in the U.S., Korean medical school graduates must pass three rounds of the U.S. Medical License Examination (USMLE) and undergo training as medical residents, according to the ministry.

In this process, Korean medical students who do not have U.S. citizenship or permanent residency need a J-1 visa issued by the U.S. Committee for the Education of Foreign Medical Graduates to become U.S. specialists. The committee requests a recommendation letter from the students’ national health authorities to issue the visa.

However, the Health Ministry's current internal regulation, the Guidelines for Issuing Recommendation Letters for Overseas Training, stipulates that those subject to administrative punishment are not eligible for a recommendation.

"If the trainee doctors receive administrative penalties for leaving their workplace, such records will remain on their CVs and become a condition for exclusion from issuing a recommendation letter, making it difficult to issue it," Second Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Park Min-soo said during the briefing.