South Korea is expected to produce over 1,000 professionals in medical AI over the next five years.
Recently, the Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare announced that it will work with the country's leading public and private universities to offer new specialised courses on AI in healthcare.
The ministry has selected the following six universities:
- Kyung Hee University
- Seoul National University
- Sungkyunkwan University
- Ajou University
- Chung-Ang University
- Hallym University
Based on a media release, they will offer specialised courses in areas such as AI diagnosis and prediction, AI novel drug and treatment development, and AI medical device development, through their medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, and engineering departments.
Each university will receive state funding of 1 billion won (over $700,000) for the next five years, starting with an initial budget of 750 million won (around $540,000) this year.
Besides offering courses, a system of collaboration will be set up between the universities and health tech companies and hospitals providing medical data for AI development. This system will support student-led projects and provide internships.
Additionally, the MOHW will work with the Ministries of Trade, Industry and Energy, Food and Drug Safety, and the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency to provide datasets for lectures and train researchers.
WHY IT MATTERS
"The plan is to produce over 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students with expertise in medical AI integration over the next five years," the MOHW said.
"Medical AI is a key technology that will fundamentally shift the paradigm of the healthcare sector," noted Baek Young-ha, MOHW director of Healthcare Data Promotion Division.
THE LARGER CONTEXT
Also recently, the MOHW launched a new programme offering vouchers to startups developing AI-driven medical solutions. It will provide up to 400 million won (over $280,000) in funding per project that will utilise hospital data from partner hospitals.
It followed the Seoul government's move early this year, which also provided funding and assistance to startups to access hospital data for developing medical AI applications.
The Korean MOHW has been promoting the use of medical data to advance digital health research since 2020. In 2023, it launched the Medical Data Utilisation Project, which connects digital health researchers with hospitals to access their deidentified medical data safely.
