4,500 Doctors Continue Walkout

About 4,500 doctors walked off their jobs for a second straight day, accusing the South Korean government of trying to force small clinics out of business. The doctors, all in medical residencies, launched their walkout to protest a government plan to ban pharmacists from prescribing medicine and doctors from selling it. The roles of physicians and pharmacists are not clearly divided in South Korea. Pharmacists can freely prescribe drugs, while doctors make a large part of their income by buying drugs from pharmaceutical firms and selling them to their patients for profit.