Education for rural practice in Canada and Australia.

Better education, recruitment, and retention of rural doctors are priorities in Canada and Australia. All medical schools in both countries offer some training in rural areas. In Canada, postgraduate training is provided by university medical schools, which have produced a variety of rural educational initiatives in response to regional needs and resources. In Australia, postgraduate training is provided by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) and specialty colleges, and the RACGP's Faculty of Rural Medicine has established a national training program for rural medicine. In both countries, a wide variety of continuing medical education (CME) courses are being developed for rural doctors, and funding resources and local programs are offered to make it easier for rural doctors to attend CME courses. Both countries continue to struggle to ensure high-quality, accessible medical care for rural populations. Although the two countries differ both in their health and in medical education systems, Canada and Australia are similar geographically and in their population distributions, and can benefit from and build on each other's experiences and advances.