Only 21 additional doctors have applied to train as interns and residents at university hospitals for the second half of the year.

According to the health ministry on Monday, a total of 21 doctors, including four interns and 17 residents, applied for the additional round of recruitment. Among them, only seven applied to the so-called "Big 5" major hospitals in Seoul.

Including the 104 doctors who applied in July, the total number of applicants for the second-half recruitment stood at 125, or just one-point-six percent of the seven thousand-645 available seats.

The current recruitment efforts come after more than 12-thousand trainee doctors, or over 90 percent of the nation's total, resigned en masse since February 20 in protest of the government's push to increase the medical school admissions quota.

Hospitals will select successful junior doctor candidates through interviews and other means within this month, with their training set to begin on September 1.