Korea eases rules on who may dissect bodies for medical training

South Korea's health ministry said Tuesday it has relaxed the qualifications required to dissect donated bodies and to supervise anatomy instruction, a change meant to widen the pool of medical professionals involved in training and to ease a cadaver shortage at the country's medical schools.

Under the revised enforcement decree of the Act on Dissection and Preservation of Corpses, doctors and dentists working at medical, dental or Korean medicine schools, or at medical institutions, may perform dissections if they hold substantial knowledge and experience in the field and are cleared by a corpse dissection review committee. The previous requirement that they serve at least five years as a full-time specialist at a general hospital has been removed.

"The revision expands the range of people with anatomical expertise who can take part in dissection of corpses and in supervising dissection, and it also establishes specific licensing standards for institutions that provide bodies for educational purposes to medical schools short of donated cadavers," Lim Eul-ki, who directs medical resources policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said in a statement.

Instructors without a background in anatomy, pathology or forensic medicine will also be allowed to dissect or to lead dissection instruction. Professors, associate professors, assistant professors and lecturers at medical, dental and Korean medicine colleges must hold a master's or doctoral degree in an anatomy-related field and either have completed at least nine credits in related subjects or accumulated at least four years of relevant experience. Research experience at a university or research institute counts in full, as does full-time or other research work under a format prescribed by the health minister; other research experience is credited at a rate of between 30 percent and 70 percent.

The decree also creates licensing standards for institutions that supply whole or partial bodies for student education, covering dissection and examination rooms, body storage and records rooms, counselling offices, ventilation, drainage, heating and lighting equipment, and staffing including a manager at the assistant professor level or above, a body-handling officer and a donation counsellor. Licensing procedures and requirements have been separated for institutions supplying bodies for education and for those supplying body parts for research. The revised rules take effect from the day of promulgation.

The revision follows an amendment to the underlying law passed on Nov. 11, 2025, which broadened dissection and instruction qualifications, created a legal basis for supplying bodies to medical school students, established the educational supply institutions and tightened prohibitions on commercial use of donated bodies and the management of related information systems.