Volume twenty-five, Issue 4

Despite their critical roles in underserved areas, the work of rural nurses can be invisible in health policy, research, and training curricula. Rural nurses face unique challenges, such as geographic isolation, lack of resources, and insufficient educational preparation, which contribute to high levels of stress and professional dissatisfaction. These factors affect individual health professionals but also have an impact on the quality of care delivered in rural populations. This Review identifies and maps the rewards and challenges, or factors contributing to 'pleasure' and 'suffering'– as derived from the work of Christophe Dejours – for rural nurses.

In Bangladesh, nearly 70% of people live in rural areas and face difficulties accessing health care because of low availability of providers and the high costs of care. To mitigate this situation, the Bangladesh government hired more than 6000 physicians in 2014, but whether this increased access and improved health status for rural people has not been studied to date. This Original Research article presents one of the first studies to assess the impacts of physician recruitment on access to care and the health status of rural people in Bangladesh. 

It is well established that medical students enrolled in a rural clinical school (RCS), particularly those who also have a rural background, are more likely to work rurally than medical students who only undertake metropolitan-based training. In response to rural workforce shortages in Western Victoria, Australia, the Deakin University Medical School introduced a rural training stream (RTS) to specifically recruit students from the local rural area and train them in the same region, with the aim that they will become local rural clinicians. To augment the introduction of the RTS, an innovative 3-day rural immersion program was developed to provide students with practical experience and knowledge about the RCS environment and help with preferencing decisions. This Policy Report contributes to the literature on medical students’ RCS preferencing decisions and presents students’ perceptions of the rural immersion program.

This Letter to the Editor responds to a recent <i>Rural and Remote Health</i> article about the clinical courage in rural doctors. The authors reflect on how courage relates to community, culture and care for rural doctors in the Philippines.