New WMA President Pledges to Protect Physicians, Strengthen Primary Healthcare and Set Ethical Standards for the Digital Era 

Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 9 October 2026

The newly inaugurated President of the World Medical Association (WMA), Dr. Jung Yul Park, has set out six commitments to guide the Association during his presidency. They range from strengthening primary healthcare and protecting the next generation of physicians to setting ethical guidelines for artificial intelligence and upholding medical neutrality.
Speaking at the WMA General Assembly in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Dr. Park said he took on the presidency “with profound honor and an overwhelming sense of responsibility.” He has been a professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Korea University since 1995 and is Chair of International Affairs of the Korean Medical Association. He also serves as President of the Korean Academy of Neurological Sciences and holds several roles in the World Federation for Medical Education. He has taught medical education and medical humanities for more than 20 years, and in recent years has also taught climate medicine.

He described an era of remarkable medical achievement that is also an era of profound global health crisis. He named four challenges facing the profession: deepening health inequities and the collapse of essential healthcare systems, the impact of the climate crisis on health, physician burnout and workplace safety, and the ethical frontiers of AI and digital healthcare. He called the unequal distribution of vaccines, essential medicines and medical resources “a profound moral challenge to humanity.”

He was just as direct about the wellbeing of doctors: “Burnout is not a personal weakness, but a system failure.” He warned that attacks on hospitals and healthcare personnel in conflict zones continue “in blatant violation of international law.” He added that worsening working conditions and excessive legal risks are driving physicians away from the profession.
In response, Dr. Park pledged to strengthen primary healthcare and encourage national medical associations to work together to close the global infrastructure gap.

He committed to safeguarding professional autonomy and expanding mentorship and working-environment reform for young doctors. He also pledged to set human-centric ethical guidelines so that technology enhances, rather than replaces, the physician, and to build disaster preparedness and climate-resilient health systems with national medical associations. He promised to defend international humanitarian law and medical neutrality. Finally, he said he would open the WMA wider to junior doctors, women in medicine and physicians from the smallest and most resource-limited associations.

He acknowledged that members will not always agree, saying this “is not a weakness of this Association; it is what makes it valuable and democratic.” But, he added, “there must be no retreat from the basic principles of human dignity, patient rights, and professional autonomy and independence.”
“When future generations look back on our time, let them remember us not merely by the titles we held, but by how many lives we touched, how many doctors we protected, and how strong a legacy of care we left behind,” he said in closing.

In her farewell address, outgoing WMA President Dr. Jacqueline Kitulu, the first Kenyan and only the second African woman to hold the office, looked back on a year shaped by three commitments: interregional collaboration, mentorship and primary healthcare. She highlighted the inaugural African Leadership Conference in Livingstone, Zambia, which strengthened the Coalition of African National Medical Associations (CANMA). She also pointed to a structured mentorship programme developed with the Kenya Medical Association. Noting that only six of the 76 previous WMA Presidents have been women, she called for more deliberate efforts to give talented women the opportunity to lead.

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