Duration of rural training during residency: rural family physicians prefer 6 months.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether rural family physicians thought they had received enough months of rural exposure during family medicine residency, how many months of rural exposure those who were satisfied with their training had had, and how many months of rural exposure those who were not satisfied with their training wanted.

DESIGN Mailed survey.

SETTING Rural Canada.

PARTICIPANTS Rural family physicians who had graduated between 1991 and 2000 from a Canadian medical school.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Respondents' opinions about whether their exposure to rural medicine during training had been adequate.

RESULTS Response rate was 59% (382/651). After excluding physicians who had not had Canadian family medicine residency training, 348 physicians remained, and of those, 58% thought they had had adequate rural exposure during residency. Median duration of rural training among those who thought they had had enough rural exposure was 6 months; median duration of rural exposure among those who thought they had not had enough was 2 months. Median duration of rural exposure desired by those who thought they had not had enough rural training was 6 months. Some physicians wanted much more than 6 months of rural training; for example, one quarter of those satisfied with their rural training had had 10 or more months of rural rotations. Fewer than 1% of respondents thought they had received too much rural training. There was no significant difference in number of months of rural training preferred by men and women (P = .94). One third of respondents had graduated from rural-focused family practice residency programs. Rural program graduates were more likely than non-rural program graduates to report that the duration of their rural training was adequate (84% vs 46%, P < .0001) and to report more mean months of rural exposure (8.9 vs 3.4; P < .0001).

CONCLUSION Typical rural family physicians prefer to have 6 months of rural exposure during residency. This finding is consistent with the recommendation of a College of Family Physicians of Canada committee that rural family medicine training programs offer at least 6 months of rural rotations. Almost half of rural family physicians wished they had had more rural training. Both rural-focused and non-rural-focused programs should consider providing opportunities for pursuing elective rotations in rural areas in addition to mandatory rotations if they want to respond to these preferences for training.