background: assessment of policies and determining their challenges are necessary to improve and reform health systems. family physician and rural insurance policies have been the second important phase of changes in health services provided in iranian villages and towns with populations under 20,000. this study aimed to identify the challenges of implementing these policies in kerman province,...

OBJECTIVE To examine the status of postgraduate family medicine training that occurs in rural family practice settings in Canada and to identify problems and how they are addressed. DESIGN A retrospective questionnaire sent to all 18 Canadian family medicine training programs followed by a focus group discussion of results. SETTING Canadian university family medicine training programs. PA...

BACKGROUND The economic impact of a family physician practicing family medicine in rural Alabama is $1,000,000 a year in economic benefit to the community. The economic benefit of those rural family physicians practicing obstetrics has not been studied. This study was designed to determine whether there was any added economic benefit of rural family physicians practicing obstetrics in rural, un...

BACKGROUND The Physician Shortage Area Program (PSAP) of Jefferson Medical College (JMC) is one of a small number of comprehensive medical school rural programs that has been successful in increasing the supply of family physicians practicing in rural areas. Although retention is a critical component of the rural physician supply, published long-term outcomes are limited. METHODS Of the 1937 ...

Rural populations rely on physicians trained in primary care to provide emergency services. Less is known about primary care’s contribution to emergency services in urban and suburban settings. Two-thirds of family medicine and three-fourths of general internal medicine Medicare claims for emergency care are generated in urban settings, demonstrating primary care’s significant contribution to t...

INTRODUCTON In the USA, area health education centers (AHECs) work to recruit and educate students to serve in medically underserved communities, primary care, and rural settings. One important aspect of their work is connecting students with rural clinical experiences. Within these experiences, AHECs incorporate a community health/socioeconomic experience within the family medicine clerkship t...

Greetings from Melfort, Sask, a city of 5000 people, where I have been spending a few weeks immersed in rural family medicine. Having been born and raised in the greater Toronto area and having completed my schooling in Kingston and London, Ont, I have found this rural way of life an interesting, positive, and eye-opening experience. One of the greatest opportunities we have in family medicine ...