Working conditions of public health care doctors working in unbridged island of korea

Objective: In this study, we wanted to check working conditions of public health care doctors(PHDs) working in unbridged island of korea.Methods: We made structured Self-administered questionnaire and sent to all of PHDs working in unbridged island and PHDs working in land as a controlled group.Result: 52 PHDs working in unbridged island and 130 PHDs working in land responded to our survey.PHDs working in unbridged island had difficulty using holiday, sick leave, and offical holiday to participate seminar. especially, difficult to use sick leave was statically significant(p<0.001). Almost all of them were working at night to coping with 24hr medical emergency, thus average overtime working hours was 214.8hr. However average overtime pay was 21.3hr and reward was not fully granted to them. Also, reward for COVID-19 related medical work(extracting COVID-19 specimen, medical examination before vaccination, epidemiological survey,prescription) were not fully payed (48.1%)as a wage guidelines given by the government. They suffered comparative deprivation from the other co-workers at same facility ,because of different working condition and duty. To cope with medical emergency, they required additional human resources with higher-level medical facility hotline(40.4%) and specialized medical emergency education(13.5%).Conclusion: A high percentage of PHDs working in unbridged island were first-year(92.5%),general practitioner or intern(69.2%), But they experienced high responsibility, low support and reward system early at their medical facility. So, policy making about appropriate reward and support system must be considered not only for PHDs working in unbridged island but also for primary health care system in korea.