What Is the Impact on Rural Area Residents When the Local Physician Leaves?

Background And Objectives: Scarce evidence exists in the medical literature describing the attitudes of rural community residents about the impact of losing their local physician. This pilot study explores aspects of access to care, both within and outside of primary care settings, that result from loss of a rural family physician.

Methods: We selected study participants through convenience and snowball sampling, and we conducted in-person interviews of up to 60 minutes. We audio recorded and transcribed the interviews (May to August, 2018), then analyzed transcripts using immersion crystallization and managed within Atlas.ti 7.0 software (Berlin, Germany).

Results: We interviewed 18 participants, some of whom interviewed as pairs. Our analysis revealed three significant themes: rurally-specific access to care concerns, relationships valued for being both community and care based, and loss felt specific to the integrated community leadership roles occupied by family physicians. In addition, participants identified social challenges they associated with losing their "country doctor," such as withering community cohesion.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that rural physicians offer tremendous value to their communities, both inside and beyond their clinic walls. Issues of social cohesion and local health leadership affected by physician loss should be addressed by policy makers and educators charged with designing patient-centered solutions to improve health outcomes in rural communities. Current health and medical education reforms would benefit from greater focused attention on these issues.