The Rural Specialist Project goal is to improve access to specialist care in rural BC. Through a phased approach, this project is aiming to support specialist physicians to provide care for people living in rural communities.
This project will identify training and ongoing professional development needs to support specialists practicing in rural communities and develop resources to support practicing physicians to provide more care for patients in rural communities. We will conduct a needs assessment and environmental scan that will inform the development of an outreach clinic support program for specialists wanting to expand or establish rural outreach clinics.
Improving Access to Specialist Care for Rural Communities in BC
Access to specialist care in rural BC remains limited, with significant gaps in both service delivery and training pathways. Nationally, rural areas house nearly 20% of the population, only 8% of physicians and 2% of specialists practice in these communities. This means rural residents, who often have the greatest health needs, experience longer wait times, travel burdens, and poorer health outcomes. Preliminary work from our group has demonstrated significant geographic disparities in specialist distribution in BC. Specialty residents based at urban institutions have minimal exposure to rural practice settings, and few programs currently require a rural rotation. Many urban-based specialists have expressed interest in providing care for rural populations but often do not have adequate support to establish programs. In addition, rural specialists require continuing professional development and training opportunities that reflect the unique demands of rural practice. Addressing rural health-care needs will require equipping both urban-based specialists and those practicing in rural settings with the skills, experience and support necessary to provide high-quality care in these communities.
This project aims to better understand rural specialty training opportunities and experiences, barriers and facilitators to providing specialist care to rural populations as well as opportunities and gaps for faculty development and continuing professional development for rural specialists. Through a phased-approach, we hope to be able to understand how to better support specialists currently practicing in rural areas as well as help those who are interested in practicing in rural areas do so.
Initial Phase: Needs Assessment – Semi-Structured Interviews
We have completed the initial Needs Assessment phase of this project with over 76 semi-structured interviews with program directors of a UBC specialty residency program, specialists that are currently or interested in providing care rurally in BC and family physicians that provide care in rural BC. Interviews were focused on understanding the opportunities and exposure to rural care in specialist training programs, as well as experiences of both specialists and family physicians in providing care to a rural BC community, which include barriers and enablers to specialists’ care access. Analysis is currently ongoing, and summary findings will be provided here. We also plan to expand recruitment for program director interviews nationally, to broaden our scope and understanding of trainee opportunities across the country.
If you are a program director of a UBC specialty residency program, a specialist that is currently or interested in providing care rurally in BC or a family physicians that provides care in rural BC and would like to provide thoughts on barriers or enablers to specialists care in rural BC, please click this link.
Environmental Scan – Survey
We are conducting a series of national surveys to more broadly examine provincial faculty development and continuing professional development needs, barriers to and facilitators of providing specialist care to rural populations and current rural specialty training opportunities and gaps. See below for the 2 surveys and eligibility criteria:
Survey for Residents
We want to understand from the resident perspective, the rural experiences in your residency program as well as current opportunities and challenges for exposure to rural practice in your program.
To take the survey, please click this link.
Survey for Program Directors
We want to understand current opportunities and gaps in specialty residency training programs across Canada as well as barriers and facilitators for improving exposure and rural practice opportunities
To take the survey, please click this link.
Funding and Partners
This project is supported by the Joint Standing Committee on Rural Issues (JSC) and the Specialist Services Committee, partnerships of Doctors of BC and the Government of BC.
