posted on 2020-12-08, 00:14authored byRonan O'Toole, J Wright
The critical importance of primary health care in maintaining a healthy population is well established internationally. Nevertheless, general practitioner care is not always easily accessible for some patients in Australia, particularly in rural regions. This is partly due to an insufficient number of medical graduates entering and being retained in the rural general practitioner workforce. Key elements of international and national programs designed to address this shortfall are discussed and include the use of entry requirements that preferentially select for applicants from a rural residence background, and immersion of medical students for a large share, or entire duration, of their training in rural communities. In addition, other factors that can influence decisions to enter and stay in rural practice are discussed.
History
School
School of Molecular Sciences
Publication Date
2020-11-06
Journal
Rural and Remote Health
Volume
20
Issue
4
Article Number
5769
Pagination
7p. (p. 1-7)
Publisher
James Cook University
ISSN
1445-6354
Rights Statement
The Author reserves all moral rights over the deposited text and must be credited if any re-use occurs. Documents deposited in OPAL are the Open Access versions of outputs published elsewhere. Changes resulting from the publishing process may therefore not be reflected in this document. The final published version may be obtained via the publisher’s DOI. Please note that additional copyright and access restrictions may apply to the published version.