Volume five, Issue 3

As the title suggests, surely this is a report of the most rural conference ever held. Can you beat it?

Rabies, a lethal viral disease, is still prevalent in some countries, including rural Romania. This article reports on actions undertaken in Romania with the aim of establishing a surveillance system and controlling the animal reservoir of the virus. Data on cases of human rabies and the exposed rural population are illustrated, while the authors also report the results of the rabies immune prophylaxis schedule, which was administrated to all exposed subjects.

The FRAME questionnaire will ensure that not only will comprehensive national outcomes be measured and progressively reported as students enter the rural workforce but also that individual Rural Clinical Schools have a tool that will allow modifications to be made to their programs as they mature and develop so that the results can be optimised.

Alzheimers provides significant challenges to families. Support for caregivers can be particularly important for those in rural areas. Savvy Caregiver programs can help communities to provide support. Designers should anticipate some differences for those in rural communities when compared with urban.

Does the level of training of rural doctors improve the quality of care in rural communities? It may appear there is an obvious answer - Yes! But what hard evidence do you have to support this assertion? This article provides important preliminary evidence for emergency departments in large rural centres.

We all know that informed policy development is crucial to improvement of rural health services. Informing this policy development through providing an international peer-reviewed evidence base is one of the aims of Rural and Remote Health. In this invited personal view, the Hon Julie Bishop, Minister for Ageing in the Australian Government, clearly outlines the raft of policy initiatives that underpin Australia's progress in rural health.

Re-skilling rural practitioners is a challenging issue for countries around the world. Read how Australia is ensuring rural practitioners are able to provide a much needed radiology service to their communities.

This paper addresses a challenging issue for both practitioners and health policy makers: the inequality in human supply in rural and remote areas. The authors attempted to compare the inequality in the provision of primary care physicians in two rural and remote prefectures of two neighbouring countries in Albania and Greece; two countries where information about primary care is limited. They calculated the population per physician ratio for each primary care unit in each prefecture in order to plot the Lorenz curves and measure the Gini coefficients for the comparison of the physicians' workforce in the two rural districts. It is an interesting study, which also discusses the methods of quantifying the inequality and limitations of the inequality indices.

Understanding Relationships between Diabetes Mellitus and Health-related Quality of Life in a Rural Community does a masterful job of helping readers to understand the interactions between quality of life, disease, co-morbidities, and aboriginal status in an isolated rural location. It also provides a blueprint for the cooperation needed for such studies.

Can providing students with an intense introduction to rural practice and/or Indigenous culture result in a positive change in opinion about these aspects of medical education? "Rural weeks" are part of the first and second year curricula at the University of Adelaide Medical School, South Australia - read about their experience.

Would your patient records be a reliable source to determine the prevelance of illnesses in your rural or remote community? This interesting study on gastrointestinal disorders from Crete identifies just this problem.

When rare, but potentially fatal, conditions present to your rural practice, do you know what to do? This study examines the responses to one such condition, Irukandji syndrome.

Confused about the difference between mentoring, clinical supervision and precepting? You are not alone! This article summarises the international consensus on these roles and describes the implications for rural nurses.

Available online now: book review by Prof David Wilkinson, of "Beyond the Divide: Women's experiences in rural Victorian psychiatric rehabilitation services" by Marg Brooks.

There are many challenges to providing evidence-based preventative care in remote settings. This article describes some Australian experience in relation to preventing pyelonephritis in pregnancy.

Just because a rural clinician is trained and allowed to undertake an emergency intervention doesn't mean they will do it when the situation arises. Why? This study explores this important issue.

There is considerable international effort to develop appropriate education and training for rural practice. But, do our assessment processes undermine or reinforce these good intentions?

The interface between primary care and specialty care is a key consideration in health care cost and quality. Physicians in rural areas have different patterns of referrals, but is this geography, training, or experience? What do 800 physicians say about this important area?

Can new technology help rural clinicians deal with chronic disease? New evidence in relation to point of care pathology and diabetes in rural communities.