Defining the Canadian rural general surgeon

Abstract

Background: A total of 18%-30% of Canadians live in a rural area and are served by 8% of the country's general surgeons. The demographic characteristics of Canada's population and its geography greatly affect the health outcomes and needs of the popu lation living in rural areas, and rural general surgeons hold a unique role in meeting the surgical needs of these communities. Rural general surgery is a distinct area of practice that is not well understood. We aimed to define the Canadian rural general surgeon to inform rural health human resource planning.Methods: A scoping review of the literature was undertaken of Ovid, MEDLINE, and Embase using the terms "rural," "general surgery," and "workforce." We limited our review to articles from North America and Australia. Results:The search yielded 425 titles, and 110 articles underwent fulltext review. A definition of rural general surgery was not identified in the Canadian literature. Rurality was defined by population cutoffs or combining community size and prox imity to larger centres. The literature highlighted the unique challenges and broad scope of rural general surgical practice.