What is the solution to the conflict between medical schools and life sciences departments?

I was happy to hear that my friend was accepted to Sungkyunkwan University’s Graduate School of Medicine, but seeing her struggle to find an advisor for her thesis made me think about the closeness of the Faculty of Life Sciences and the problems of graduate school in Korea.

 

I heard from a life science major friend who was accepted into Sungkyunkwan University’s Graduate School of Medicine (hereinafter referred to as the Medical School) this year. Next year is the last year of the medical school program, and the school she applied to was one of the top three schools in Korea, so she was very happy, and I congratulated her sincerely. However, the news of her acceptance soon became a source of great anxiety and worry for her. As a requirement for graduation, the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences requires students to write a thesis or take a graduation exam in their major, and the School of Life Sciences requires students to choose a laboratory and write a thesis under the guidance of a professor. The problem is that most professors only accept students who will later join their lab as graduate students as thesis advisors. Especially in the life sciences department, where there is a very bad feeling about medical school, very few professors are willing to take on students who have passed medical school. My friend complained of many difficulties in finding a thesis advisor, and in the end, the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences made a request to the Faculty of Life Sciences to find a professor who was willing to accept students who had been admitted to the medical school, and he was able to write his thesis. Seeing my friend’s psychological difficulties from the side, I thought again about the closeness of the current Faculty of Life Sciences.
Of course, it is true that many students have entered medical schools since the medical school system was implemented, and it is not unreasonable for professors to think that they have lost students who could have come to Korea’s graduate schools and become their students. However, their inability to look at the merits of medical schools dispassionately and turn a blind eye to what is happening in the life sciences is similar to that of a child who sees only what he wants to see and hears only what he wants to hear. They viewed the medical center as an evil element that hindered the development of life sciences, and they insisted on the abolition of the medical center system, and in the end, they won. But did the professors really win? Will students be lining up outside their labs next year?
Many life science students, including myself, do not have a strong preference for graduate school. Especially for graduate schools in Korea, the rate of students entering graduate school is quite low, and except for some big labs, it is not uncommon for them to bring in students from other Korean universities, even from places like Vietnam and India, rather than from Seoul National University. According to a survey conducted by the Seoul National University Human Rights Center last month, a significant number of graduate students in science and engineering at SNU complain of depression, with excessive workloads cited as the main cause. In Korea, graduate students are asked to do an unreasonable amount of work, not only in research but also as “professors’ slaves” and “professors’ personal assistants”. I realized the severity of the current situation when I heard from a friend who entered graduate school a year ago and worked Monday through Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 8 or 9 p.m., and was paid only 500,000 won a month, and couldn’t eat for a few days. In addition, professors who force graduate students to pay their salaries and then redeposit them into a different account, professors who steal students’ research results and pass them off as their own, and professors who use graduate students to organize their own moving, are all factors that make students reluctant to go to graduate school in Korea. Most professors in life sciences departments require a combined master’s and doctoral program, so once students enter the lab, they stay under their supervisor for about 4-5 years, or longer if their thesis is not accepted. (In fact, my sister, who is currently working in the lab, has been a graduate student for 6 years, and there are many people who have been working in the lab for nearly 10 years.) However, the problem is that even after such a long period of study, master’s and doctoral degrees in Korea are rarely recognized in the sciences. Those who do not have a degree from a country like the United States or the United Kingdom, which have a longer history of basic science than Korea, are discriminated against in Korea when it comes to getting a job in a research institute or being appointed as a professor. Therefore, many graduate students go to the U.S. to continue their studies after earning a master’s or doctoral degree in Korea, but foreign universities often do not recognize Korean graduate programs, so they have to start their studies from scratch. As a result, they waste at least 3 to 5 years and up to 7 to 10 years.
I also experienced lab life through various internship programs and practical courses since last year, and the time I spent in the lab for almost a year was very disappointing. I joined my school’s neuroscience lab to learn more about neuroscience, specifically the brain’s reward system and mechanisms involved in eating disorders and addiction, with the goal of eventually finding a way to treat obesity. I was very disappointed to find that the labs used rats as research subjects, and I realized that this was not the only case when I heard from my uncle, who is a basic researcher at Sungkyunkwan University College of Medicine. According to him, a lot of research funding is being directed to medical schools, and clinicians are the ones who can directly treat patients and collect relevant data. As the economy has gotten tougher, there’s less money available for research, so it’s being focused on research that can really help people, and this trend is likely to continue. For the average life scientist, it’s easy to imagine how difficult it can be to get funding. Life scientists, especially those working in microbiology, immunology, and neuroscience – fields that overlap with medical school – will lose out to clinicians unless their research is overwhelmingly superior. Because clinicians have limited access to human subjects, life scientists are often relegated to being ancillary researchers who work alongside clinicians, or they must work with animals such as mice and rabbits rather than humans. However, many of the research findings and papers that make the news or catch people’s attention are not done using mice or rabbits, but are directly related to humans. Of course, basic research is important and significant because it establishes basic mechanisms in mice and rabbits and then applies the findings to humans. However, research can only be sustained by a steady flow of funding, and it is difficult to expect students who are just entering the life sciences to be able to secure large grants. If they don’t get funding, their research will suffer, and the cycle will continue. In fact, there are many students who recognize this situation and choose to go to medical school because they believe that the title of doctor rather than life scientist is more favorable for funding their future research.
Many professors in the Faculty of Life Sciences openly criticize doctors in their lectures as “a selfish group of people who only want to make a good living for themselves, and they are like technicians who see the same patients day in and day out,” and say to prospective students, “You shouldn’t come to SNU and live so selfishly. You have a lot of work to do for society,” and actively encouraged students to go to medical school. Of course, some students who want to go to medical school may be attracted to the stability of income that comes with being a doctor. However, I am skeptical that it is to blame. In Korea, despite repeatedly emphasizing the “crisis in science and technology,” there is still a disdain for science and technology, and the government has not increased its support for basic science. Those who go to graduate school to study basic life sciences have to study, design experiments, and do research just as much as those who go to medical school. They do the same, but society does not recognize their efforts, and some life scientists are struggling to make ends meet because they are not properly supported. In Korea, where basic science is ignored, I wonder how many students are willing to go through all the hardships to pursue an academic career. When I hear that some of the people who challenge medical school are graduate students in life science departments, or even people who have worked in life science research institutes, and the reasons why they changed their career path, I think that the reality of life science and other sciences in Korea is still grim. In this situation, I think it is unreasonable to criticize students who go to medical school as selfish.
Also, I think there is a clear difference between the social roles of life scientists and doctors. Doctors are in charge of “health”, which is a large part of a country’s welfare before it is just a profession. Advances in medical technology, the discovery of new treatment methods… these can affect not only their field of study, but also the entire population and, more broadly, the entire human race. On the other hand, a life scientist’s research may contribute to the advancement of his or her field and basic science in general, but it will not have a significant social impact without further research on how it can be applied to people. While it is true that advances in medicine are preceded by advances in basic life sciences, it is also true that life sciences have a limited role in society in isolation. For example, the discovery of radiation itself did not have much impact, but when it was used to create X-rays and revolutionize patient care, it had a huge impact. In light of this, if you want to make a big contribution to society, you should become a doctor and do research that can improve the health of the entire population. It is not a good position for an educator to emphasize and denigrate only one aspect of doctors – making the error of generalization – while ignoring the ripple effect that doctors can bring to society, and it may even bring down the prestige of life sciences as a whole.
Of course, it is understandable that professors are angry and worried about the future of life sciences, as 99% of life science students are preparing for medical school, and the number of students who want to go to graduate school in Korea is decreasing. It is true that the “crisis in basic science” is becoming more serious every day as the number of basic science researchers decreases. However, the current reality of life science students is preventing them from going to graduate school and becoming life scientists. There is still a societal disregard for basic science, and even worse, professors’ abuse of power in the laboratory and insufficient compensation for graduate students. If these issues are not improved, the number of students entering graduate school in Korea will not increase significantly even if the medical school is abolished. In order to attract more students to Korea’s graduate schools, the first step is to objectively and soberly judge the current problems in the life sciences departments and come up with improvement plans, not to blindly criticize the medical schools for “stealing students” and apply various disadvantages to students who want to go to medical schools. Rather, the professors’ attitude seems to emphasize the intolerance and closeness of the life sciences departments, which will only make them laugh out loud. Professors in the life sciences departments believe that the number of students going to graduate school in Korea will increase as the official announcement of the abolition of the medical school will be made next year. I wonder if we should abandon the somewhat naive idea that the declining number of students entering graduate school in Korea can be alleviated by simply abolishing the medical school system.