Design, Implementation and Future Development of the Policy of Compulsory Rural Service Directed Medical Students Free Training Program

Abstract

Compulsory rural service directed medical student free training program is a medical education policy oriented to the cultivation of high-quality general medical talents for primary care system in rural areas, and is an important initiative to deepen the reform of the pharmaceutical and health system and accelerate the construction of a "healthy China", which is an important foundation for implementing the "poverty removal" and promotion of sustainable development of "poverty alleviation by health". Policy of compulsory rural service directed medical students free training program was designed scientifically and rationally, effectively combining motivating mechanisms with compulsory mechanisms, and is continuously refined in the practice process. In the course of policy implementation, various regions of our country have developed their characteristic implementation strategies accordingly in the links of enrollment, training, employment, and contract performance. The program based on the policy educated a large number of qualified GPs for rural primary care system. The compulsory rural service directed medical students fulfilled the contract well, and the career development trend was positive, which contributed to strengthening the construction of the primary health workforce, enhancing the level of primary health service, and promoting the establishment of a hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system. However, during the implementation of the policy, many challenges have been encountered, such as some students' low learning enthusiasm during the training period, limited capacity of local authorities to implement the policy, the need for improvement of pay incentives for primary GPs and the short service cycle. In this paper, we conducted a systematic analysis of the design concept and execution process of the policy of free training for compulsory rural service directed medical students, and suggested that further expansion of scale of the compulsory rural service directed free training program should be conducted to improve the quality of cultivation, enhance the effective collaboration among multiple parties and the contract fulfillment, which will collectively promote the effective implementation of the policy, thereby providing talent support for the hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system and the "Health China" strategy.

Keywords

• general practitioners|target admission medical graduates|education, medical|health policy|health workforce|primary health care