The family medicine podcast from Medical Writing takes its first steps and does so with a first episode focused on the physicians practicing in rural areas and the obstacles and satisfactions they find in their day to day life. Although the group accounts for half of the total number of professionals dedicated to Primary Care, it is a “body to be extinguished” given the lack of generational change, with only two out of every ten vacancies covered, and the numerous upcoming retirements.
To this are added handicaps such as the lack of conciliation and incentives, isolation, loneliness, lack of resources or continuity of care that multiplies the days. The lack of predisposition to exercise in this area, according to professionals, is born in the universities, where teachers linked to rural medicine are scarce that can focus students towards this aspect. There are also shortcomings in terms of atMIR authors, teaching units and accredited health centers, since only two out of every ten centers belonging to non-urban areas have this certification.
A) Yes, less than 1.5 percent of new residents choose health centers or hospitals far from cities. Its mission is to relieve a notably aging staff, since a third of the doctors who work in non-urban centers will retire within five years. “Rural doctors are a body to be extinguished,” warned José Manuel Cucalón, member of Rural Primary Care of the Zaragoza College of Physicians.
24 hour medical guards
At travel times, up to 200 kilometers per day for 13 percent, and the hours spent on Continuing Medical Education adds an already long working day, with guards and difficulty to be replaced. “We rural doctors are the only ones who do 24 hours on call“, claimed Cucalón, when speaking of the 34-35 hours that he and his companions perform uninterruptedly, half without the opportunity to free.
More than half of rural doctors do not feel represented by the Cgcom, a fact that for Tomás Cobo, president of said entity, supposes “a challenge and a duty for the organization that should not go unnoticed”. “Neither the salaries are adequate, nor is there continuity or training. There is a very high responsibility,” the president pointed out.