New Delhi, Feb. 11 -- South Korea plans to increase medical school admissions by more than 3,340 students from 2027 to 2031 to address concerns about physician shortages in one of the fastest-aging countries in the world, the government said Tuesday.

The decision was announced months after officials defused a prolonged doctors' strike by backing away from a more ambitious increase pursued by Seoul's former conservative government. Even the scaled-down plan drew criticism from the country's doctors' lobby, which said the move was "devoid of rational judgment."

Kwak Soon-hun, a senior Health Ministry official, said that the president of the Korean Medical Association attended the health care policy meeting but left early to boycott the vo...