The Korean Intern Resident Association(KIRA), representing the nation's medical residents and interns, held an extraordinary general meeting online on Monday night to discuss their response to the government's planned increase of the quota for medical school admissions.

According to the medical community on Tuesday, the trainee doctors held a late-night meeting to discuss ways to stop the planned expansion. The meeting ended after midnight but the outcome has yet to be released.  

The KIRA said that in a survey held last Monday of about ten-thousand trainee doctors at some 140 hospitals, 88-point-two percent said they would be willing to participate in collective action to protest the increase. 

Earlier, residents and interns at the nation's so-called "Big Five" general hospitals, including Seoul National University Hospital and Severance Hospital, had also collected opinions in their own surveys on whether to take group action.

As the government has warned of a stern response to any collective action from doctors, Monday’s meeting is thought to have discussed specific methods and timing for a group action, such as mass resignations, the return of doctors’ licenses and a collective strike. 

The Korean Medical Association(KMA) also plans to form an emergency steering committee this week and to stage 16 municipal-level rallies nationwide on Thursday.