In China, “Being a Doctor Is a Stable Career” Is an Old Saying ... Top Talent Turns to Engineering

[Financial News] As artificial intelligence (AI) and the robotics industry continue to grow, an “engineering boom” is sweeping China. At the same time, interest in attending medical school and pursuing a career as a doctor is steadily declining.
On the 20th (local time), the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported, "In China, more top students are considering changing their career paths after entering medical school, while medical school admission cutoffs themselves are also falling."
Analysts have attributed this trend to the long time it takes to establish oneself as a doctor in China, along with low pay during training, difficulties finding employment, and heavy workloads that include night shifts.
Citing a local outlet's analysis of admission-score results in Zhejiang Province, SCMP reported, "This year, the rank of the lowest-ranked student admitted to the medical program at the prestigious Sun Yat-sen University in Guangdong Province fell by 1,300 places from last year." At Southern Medical University, another medical school in Guangdong Province, the lowest admitted rank among applicants from Zhejiang Province fell below 2,000th place. The cutoff for applicants from Guangdong Province fell by more than 10,000 places, according to reports.
The decline in admission cutoffs was particularly pronounced in five-year undergraduate clinical medicine programs. Graduates of these programs must complete three years of residency training at a hospital, and competition for residency positions is also intense. In recent years, a master's degree or higher has effectively become a basic requirement. Completing all these stages takes at least 11 years.
Even after struggling to enter a training program, residents receive little pay while performing clinical duties similar to those of regular medical staff. A 2020 survey by Dingxiangyuan, a Chinese medical information platform, found that about 28% of residents earned less than 1,000 yuan per month (about 200,000 won), while 8% had no income at all. Only 32% earned more than 3,000 yuan per month (about 580,000 won).
[email protected] Hong Chae-wan Reporter