Professor Ian Couper is Director of the Ukwanda Centre for Rural Health and Professor of Rural Health at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. A trained family physician, he spent nine years practising in a remote rural hospital in northern KwaZuluNatal province, and then 16 years working in primary care and health service development in rural North West province. He held the first chair of rural health at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). He has chaired both the Rural Doctors Association of Southern Africa (RuDASA) and the Wonca Working Party on Rural Practice (WONCA Rural).