A survey on service status of rural doctors in Beijing suburb

Objective To survey the service status of rural doctors in Beijing suburb. Methods Twenty one village officials, 21 rural doctors and 42 local residents from 21 villages in Beijing Huairou district were selected with purposive sampling method as the objects of this qualitative study. The service status of rural doctors was assessed from four aspects: basic public health service, basic medical service, management ability, responsibility and communication ability. Results All the 21 village clinics provided basic public health services, including hypertension management (100.0%), diabetes management (100.0%); 11 clinics (52.4%) also provided vaccination services. Eighteen village doctors (85.7%) assisted township health center to provide signing health service, but were lack of knowledge about the types of service the general practitioners (GPs) should provide. The well performed basic medical services among 21 village clinics included diagnosis and differential diagnosis of common diseases in 19 (90.5%) clinics, home visits in 18 (85.7%) and physical examinations in 15 (71.4%), but the service like trauma management, changing dressing, subcutaneous injection, intravenous infusion were performed less well. The top three most satisfied aspects in the medical service were the service attitude (4.14 points), the quality of service (3.98 points) and service time (3.66 points), and the bottom three were equipment facilities, the types and varieties of drug, and the environment of clinics. In aspect of emergency service, 7 village doctors (33.3%) would choose self-referral by patients without preliminary on-site emergency treatment, 5(23.8%) would give on-site emergency treatment before self-referral by patients. In aspect of training needs, 18 (42.9%) local residents and 9 (42.9%) village officials considered that it was not necessary to provide training for village doctor because of relatively older age. In aspect of patient′s satisfaction, 21 village doctors (100.0%), 21 village officials (100.0%) and 34 villagers (81.0%) considered that the village doctor had a high professional sense of responsibility and medical ethics, and their doctor-patient communication skills were strong. Conclusion The survey reveals the current service status of village doctors in Beijing suburb, and it is necessary to take comprehensive measures to upgrade the competence of village doctors and to improve the quality of service in village clinics. Key words: Rural doctors; Professional competence; Qualitative research