INTRODUCTION The recruitment and retention of health workers, crucial to health service delivery, is a major challenge in many rural and remote areas. Finnmark, the most remote and northern county in Norway, has faced recurrent shortages during the last 5 decades, especially of primary care physicians. METHODS This article describes a postgraduate training model for family physicians and publ...

OBJECTIVE To investigate associations between general practitioner vocational training location and subsequent practice location, including the effect of rural origin. DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS Annual panel survey of GPs (from the MABEL study) who completed their vocational training and transitioned to independent practice, 2008-2014. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Rural practice location in the 5 yea...

Background The main purpose of this study was to identify factors that influence healthcare quality in the Iranian context.   Methods Exploratory in-depth individual and focus group interviews were conducted with 222 healthcare stakeholders including healthcare providers, managers, policy-makers, and payers to identify factors affecting the quality of healthcare services provided in Iranian hea...

BACKGROUND Despite the fact that public and private nursing schools have contributed significantly to the Thai health system, it is not clear whether and to what extent there was difference in job preferences between types of training institutions. This study aimed to examine attitudes towards rural practice, intention to work in public service after graduation, and factors affecting workplace ...

BACKGROUND In rural health and other health service development contexts, there is frustration with a reliance on pilot projects as a means of informing policy and service innovation. There is also an emerging recognition that existing research methods do not draw lessons from the failed sustainability that characterises many of these pilots and demonstration projects. DISCUSSION This article...

The rural and urban-edge health service (SERUMS) is an activity that only health professionals perform for the Peruvian government, as it is a mandatory requirement to qualify for a second specialty or to work in public hospitals and public health care facilities, and obtain government scholarships for future training. The few legal changes in the rules of this social program and the focus of “...

CONTEXT Throughout its history, the main problem for Thailand's health system in has been an inadequate number of physicians and other healthcare workers in rural areas. Due to this, for decades in Thailand, rural service has been mandatory for healthcare workers. ISSUE Thailand's mandatory health service system commenced in 1889 and has been continuous until the present (2010). Under this sy...

This commentary was written to generate ideas and provoke debate about priorities for rural health, in advance of the Australian National Rural Health Alliance 2009 conference. The conference will doubtless be packed with highlights as together we reflect on 20 years’ successes and failures in the rural and remote health sector under the conference theme: ‘ celebrating the sector’. Another key ...