Reuters
Seoul, the capital, boasts top-level hospitals, but smaller cities are starved of doctors in a trend experts say will only get worse as the population ages at one of the world's fastest rates, while birthrates are the lowest in the world. "Our artificial kidney room was closed for almost two years because we didn't have a doctor and we couldn't find one … but this is a national phenomenon," said Cho Seung-yeon, director of the Incheon Medical Center in the port city. The shortage is at the heart of government plans to add thousands of medical school students from next year that face stiff opposition from trainee doctors and some medical groups who doubt it will improve poor working conditions.