Training doctors for rural practice is important but on its own will not reduce health inequities for people in rural New Zealand, researchers at the University of Otago say. Rural people have worse health outcomes than urban people, and the gaps are wider for Māori, said Associate Professor Katharina Blattner of the Centre for Rural Health.

"Rural health services have experienced decades of under investment, continual workforce shortages and progressive service erosion," she said. In a study in the New Zealand Medical Journal, the team reviewed 30 years of literature on rural postgraduate clinical training and academic work.

Rural Hospital Medicine training has strengthened the workforce, but a dedicated rural general-practice training pathway remains a significant gap, and fragmented funding and weak integration between primary and hospital care hold back rural medicine. The researchers call for rural-based research, academic leadership and teaching capacity, grounded in community engagement and focused on reducing rural and Māori inequities.

Photo: Stethoscopes / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Source: Farmers Weekly NZ