Rural medical educators have devised strategies based on research evidence to help shape a medical workforce that will choose to serve in rural and other under-served communities, where the health care needs are often high. Based on evidence that students from rural communities are more likely to work later in rural practice, many medical programmes now have targets for rural background students in addition to rural curriculum and placement initiatives. However, just how strong is the evidence that this is effective? Australian medical schools now have data for up to 20 years since the rural medical education initiatives were first introduced. Rural background still appears to be a strong predictor or rural practice outcomes, although combining multiple strategies appears strongest. There remain some methodological issues, such as defining both 'rural' and 'background', and determining how intention relates to ultimate location of practice. We may yet have to await longer follow-up periods before we can be confident about what works best in rural medical education.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	medical education, curriculum, medical workforce, rural background
Research Division:	Education
Research Group:	Curriculum and Pedagogy
Research Field:	Medicine, Nursing and Health Curriculum and Pedagogy
Objective Division:	Health
Objective Group:	Health and Support Services
Objective Field:	Health Policy Evaluation
UTAS Author:	Hays, R (Professor Richard Hays)
ID Code:	112178
Year Published:	2017 (online first 2016)
Web of Science® Times Cited:	2
Deposited By:	Medicine
Deposited On:	2016-10-28
Last Modified:	2017-12-14
Downloads:	0