Enhancing Medical Students’ Employment Prospects in Rural and Remote
Wales—Heledd Iago and Judy McKimm
‘Rurality’ is difficult to define, and has considerable
international variation with
regard to the definition.
However, it is attributed in
most cases to factors pertaining to population, geography or both. In the
healthcare sector, rural settings are often perceived as
particularly challenging clinical environments, resulting
in a shortage of qualified
doctors (and other health
professionals) being recruited to and retained in these
areas. This is particularly
relevant to Wales, with the
vast majority of its landmass being classed as rural, and around 1 in 3 of its
population living
within
these rural areas – a figure
that is predicted to rise
(Wales Centre for Health,
2007). Wales is suffering
from a longstanding and
ongoing shortage of doctors
– now having one of the
lowest doctor to patient ratios in Europe. The Wales
Deanery is also experiencing one of the lowest application rates from newly
graduated doctors to the
Foundation
programme,
indicating
that
medical
school graduates are preferring to live and work
elsewhere in the UK.
International research indicates that early and immersive exposure to clinical
experience in a rural environment may be a contributing factor in the retention
of medics to rural areas
(e.g. Walker et a