Rural Posting for Medical Graduates: Perception, Acceptance and Plausibility

Abstract

Introduction: India is facing acute shortage of doctors in rural areas. The government wants to make it compulsory for all MBBS graduates who have completed their internship to do one year of rural service if they wish to pursue post-graduation. Objective: The current study was planned to assess feasibility and acceptability of rural posting among medical students. Materials and Methods: It was a mixed-approach study design with both qualitative and quantitative approach conducted among 163 medical undergraduate students from three major medical colleges of Delhi. Focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted among medical students followed by a cross-sectional questionnaire based research. Data was analyzed using SPSS software version 17. Quantitative data was presented in mean±SD and proportion. For qualitative data, thematic analysis was done. Results: A total of 163 students participated in the study. 123 (75.5%) of participants were females and 40 (23.3%) were males with a mean age of 19.92±2.45 years. Less than 15% of the students accepted positively for rural posting. Insufficient incentive, security problems, cultural differences from the rural population, lack of infrastructure in rural settings, political motives in implementing rural posting, etc., were main reasons discouraging students from rural posting. Conclusion: It can be concluded that acceptability of rural posting was poor among medical students. Lack of infrastructure, security, and inadequate monetary incentives were some of the major issues for implementation of compulsory rural posting.