Abstract
The collaborative project to increase rural doctors (CPIRD) has been implemented since 1995. This
study therefore aims to assess whether the medical graduates trained by the CPIRD project were retained in rural areas longer than those trained by regular training project.
The total of 1,093 CPIRD medical graduates and 6,064 medical graduates from regular training project
during 2001 - 2007 were included. The data was traced back from 2001 to 2010 in relation to their mobility.
Survival analysis was used for data analysis.
The study found that at the 4th year of their work, 69% of CPIRD medical graduates were retained in
the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) compared to 59% of those trained by regular training project were.
Harzard ratio was 0.66 (p<0.001) and it indicated that normal track medical graduates had a probability to
resign from the MOPH 1.5 times than that of the CPIRD, significantly. After 3 years of public compulsory
work ended, 52% of CPIRD medical graduates were retained at rural hospitals while 47% of the normal
track medical graduates were. Harzard ratio was 0.88 (p= 0.001) and it indicated that normal track medical
graduates had greater chance to move out of rural areas 1.14 times than that of the CPIRD ones, significantly.
The median survival time in rural of the CPIRD medical graduates was declined from 10 years to 4
years, comparing to that of the normal track medical graduates that was declined from 6.5 years to 3 years.
Although physicians under the CPIRD project have higher rural retention, the median survival time
in rural had declined over 10 years and it become close to that of the normal track physicians. The trends
indicated that the improvement of the CPIRD project is needed in order to attract and retain more physicians
in rural areas.
