‘Moving to the countryside and staying’? Exploring doctors’ migration choices to rural areas

In this paper we bring together health services research, rural studies and migration research to explore the recruitment and retention of doctors to rural areas. We argue that to understand doctors' job choices we need to understand their lives holistically - beyond solely their job. In doing this we consider why doctors move, but also why they stay in rural areas. To do this we draw on qualitative research with 56 doctors from primary and secondary care. We highlight how place-based factors are important to consider in moving beyond the language of ‘recruitment and retention’, as many of the issues facing doctors moving to, or staying in, rural areas are beyond the scope and influence of their jobs and the health service. With a demographic shift in general practice particularly, where many GPs are over the age of 50, specific pre-retirement migration habits are important to consider within wider research on demographic ageing in rural communities. Further, stressors such as the COVID-19 pandemic may have impacts on the migration decisions of future doctors' training or career choices. This work's contribution, thus, brings holistic place-based and interdisciplinary perspectives to bear on work otherwise influenced heavily by health and medical research and we argue that such dialogue with other interdisciplinary perspectives within rural studies is important in understanding professional migratory choices, particularly of doctors, to rural places.