A cross sectional study of calling and resilience in medical students and their relationship to an interest in rural practice

Emily Neville

Abstract

Australians who live in rural and remote areas have a lower life expectancy, higher rates of disease and injury, and poorer access to health services than people living in Major cities. However, per 100,000 people there are on average only 264 doctors in rural and remote areas compared to 437 in Metropolitan areas. Clearly, there is a definite need for appropriate, accessible health services in rural and remote Australia, yet undeniable that there are not enough personnel willing to match the need. Medical workforce maldistribution is a pertinent issue in Australia, from the prime minister to the person on the land.

My research aimed to solve this problem by determining whether the personality characteristics of resilience and calling are related and whether they are associated with a rural background or not. Calling has been defined as a sense of vocation and resilience is commonly referred to as the ability to bounce back from adversity.

In phase one, an extensive literature search highlighted that there are only six articles directly related to calling and resilience in medical students and only one looks at rural as a topic of concern. The literature is very limited, but we now know that calling and resilience are important factors for consideration in workforce planning.

In phase two, I analysed the results of a data set of 469 first year medical students from The University of Queensland. We found that high levels of calling are associated with high levels of resilience. Furthermore, our results identified that those students who consider themselves from a rural background are more resilient than their non-rural background counterparts. Importantly, we have also found that regardless of whether you are from a rural background or not, if you are interested in rural you are likely to have a stronger calling to rural medicine than those students who are not interested in rural.

Consistent with prior literature, the characteristics of calling and resilience are influential and could impact on rural workforce outcomes. Identification of calling and resilience is possible so targeted interventions can begin early in the first year of medical education. Students from a rural background with a high level of resilience and students from a non-rural background who demonstrate a calling could be supported to help redistribute the medical workforce. The results from this study have important implications for selection and streaming of medical students.