Commentary

Rural medical education in Europe: the relevance of the Australian experience

Submitted: 10 November 2006 Revised: 8 January 2007 Published: 27 February 2007 Full text: You can view the full article, or view a printable version. Comments: (login to access the comments on this article) Author(s) : Hays RB.

Richard Hays

Citation: Hays RB.  Rural medical education in Europe: the relevance of the Australian experience . Rural and Remote Health 7 (online), 2007: 683. Available from: http://www.rrh.org.au

The drive to increase recognition of the different health care needs of rural communities has been more successful in North America and Australia than in Europe. This success has translated into political support for a range of education, workforce and service model initiatives that appear to be effective in providing a better prepared and supported healthcare workforce in rural communities, providing services through specifically developed delivery models, all with the aim of improving the quality of health care for rural people. The reasons for the differences between Europe and nations with greater success appear to relate to: the absence of a clear, shared definition of rurality across a very diverse group of nations within Europe, and a weaker coalition of interests advocating rural health issues. As a result, although very similar rural health issues are present in Europe, governments are not particularly supportive of initiatives aimed specifically at rural health and so rural medical education is much less well developed. This article explores how the rural health movement in Europe might build on success elsewhere to develop and successfully promote localy relevant models of rural medical education.

Key words: Europe, quality, rurality.

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