Challenges with Healthcare in the Rural and Prairie Environment

This symposium includes thirteen personal narratives from individuals who have learned, first-hand, what it means to provide healthcare services in rural or frontier communities in the United States. This meaning is uncovered as the authors describe an array of personal and professional challenges and rewards-the careful balancing of one's soul, psyche, family, and profession-with the constraints that accompany care in less populated areas. This symposium also includes three commentaries by authors who have expertise in the areas of bioethics, patient advocacy, health policy, and healthcare decision making. We hope that readers of these stories will gain greater understanding and respect for the work entailed in providing healthcare in rural settings and for some of the more unique issues that can accompany healthcare delivery in places where resources and expertise may be limited, where relationships among patients and families may be more continuous and intertwined, and where medicine becomes a job and a lifestyle.