Scope of practice of family medicine graduates who completed a rural versus urban program (original) (raw)

In Canada, rural-based family medicine residency programs were established largely in response to a shortage of rural physicians and the perception that urban-based training programs were not meeting the needs of rural populations. Examinations of practice patterns of physicians trained in rural and urban programs are lacking. The purpose of this study was to compare the scope of practice of family medicine graduates who completed a rural versus an urban residency program, by practice location. This was a cross-sectional, mail-out, questionnaire survey of 651 graduates who had completed the family medicine residency program at the University of Alberta or the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada during 2006-2011. Rural program graduates lived and trained in regional settings and spent a considerable amount of time in smaller rural and remote communities for their clinical experience. The training of urban program graduates was primarily based in large urban settings and family med...