Keeping doctors in rural areas

Doctors' reluctance to go to rural areas is not just a problem facing Bangladesh – policymakers in the United States have faced the same problems. However, while the US has come out with plans to overcome the challenge, Bangladesh authorities are mostly relying on threatening rhetoric to compel the unwilling doctors to fall into line. The US medical schools, too, have devised innovative programmes to ensure doctors stay at their rural workplaces. According to Academic Medicine, a journal published by the Association of American Medical Colleges, only nine per cent of physicians practise in rural areas, even though one in every five Americans lives there. It says the persistent shortage of physicians in rural areas ‘continues to have a major impact on access to medical care for those living in small communities’. The US government waives a large part of student loans for doctors if they work in under-served or rural areas. The medical schools offer programmes that are designed to ensure that doctors must serve in the rural counties, according to a news agency.