Rural career choice issues as reported by first year medical students and rural general practitioners

Governments have recently instituted several programmes designed to attract medical students to rural practice. Questions may be raised as to whether interventions based around issues identified as important to practising rural general practitioners (GPs) are equally applicable to undergraduate medical students. The results of two studies on the importance of personal and practice issues as ascribed by Australian rural GPs and Victorian medical students are analysed. The effect of the students' gender, place of origin and intended location of practice is assessed. Findings suggest that practising GPs may have resolved many of the student issues and may be well placed to advise students on perceived hurdles to rural practice. Furthermore, students may be seeking a practice style similar to that sought by female GPs. The present paper concludes that while there are similarities between the groups, the differences identified support caution when basing student programmes on research performed on rural GPs.