Rural healthcare delivery using a phone patch service in the teleconsultation program of the Ateneo de Zamboanga University School of Medicine in Western Mindanao, Philippines.

The retention of physicians in rural areas is a problem in developing nations. A community-oriented approach in the medical curriculum proved successful for the Ateneo de Zamboanga University School of Medicine (ADZU-SOM). Based on the 2010 alumni records of ADZU-SOM, 95% of its graduates have stayed in the country to serve, with 51% serving in rural areas. After deploying physicians to communities with no physicians, the next challenge is to keep them in these communities for a considerable period of time. Poor healthcare and technology infrastructure in these remote areas are barriers to retention. However, the advent of telemedicine offers a promising method for connecting rural physicians with specialists in urban areas 1,2 . The use of video-conferencing for face-to-face consultations and the transfer of various media files (eg radio-imaging) has proven invaluable in providing expert advice to both patients and primary care physicians 3 .