Abstract
Doctor shortage has long hindered the development of Thai health service system. It is thus crucial
to understand attitudes towards working and living in rural areas and factors driving job of choices of
doctors. The cross-sectional study conducted with 1,219 newly gradated doctors in 2011 was conducted.
Self-administered questionnaire comprising individual characteristic information, questions on attitude
towards working and living in rural areas, factors affecting their jobs of choice was used. Statistics used
were percentage, and Logistic regression.
The results showed that of the population 1,219 (527 from normal track and 313 from rural doctor
track), the majority of doctors were female. Half of the rural track doctors were from regional areas, and
the majority graduated from regional universities. Whereas, the majority of normal track doctors were from Bangkok and vicinity, and graduated from universities located in Bangkok and vicinity. Factors were
likely to affect their job of choices were workplace that : close to their hometown, enhance their learning
experience, provide case consultancy. With regards to their intention to work, few of them intended to
work at rural areas after 3 year and factors associated with their intention to work in rural areas were:
rural background and regional training.
