Just 104 doctors were found to have applied for this year's second-half recruitment offered by the nation's training hospitals. 

The figure is around one-point-three percent of the seven-thousand-645 junior doctors that training hospitals were planning to recruit in the second half of the year. 

According to the health ministry on Thursday, 104 doctors applied for 13 internship and 91 residency positions for the second-half recruitment process which ended on Wednesday. 

Only 45 doctors applied for recruitment offered by the "Big Five" general hospitals in Seoul. 

Due to the low application rate that corresponds with a call among medical professors to boycott training, the government plans to recruit additional trainee doctors later this month.