Eight-hundred-60 trainee doctors who walked off the job last year to protest the medical school admissions quota hike returned to their training Sunday.

According to the secretariat of the health ministry’s training environment assessment committee on Monday, 860 applicants were selected last month in a process to recruit additional trainee doctors at teaching hospitals.

They account for five-point-nine percent of the 14-thousand-456 recruited.

The recent returns, combined with the 822 trainee doctors who returned during the first half of the year, bring the number of trainee doctors nationwide to two-thousand-532, or 18-point-seven percent of the 13-thousand-531 who were in training prior to the quota hike.

The government earlier allowed the trainee doctors to return before the second half of the year’s training begins, in consideration of recommendations from the medical community.