The answer to the conundrum of how to encourage young doctors to go rural often involves the idea of recruiting your medical students from those who grew up there.

The problem is that home-growing a medical student takes a couple of decades, at a minimum.

So researchers have questioned more than 600 medical students who had completed a year’s training in rural communities, asking what would seduce them to go bush once they graduate.

The one that reportedly had the greatest effect was their desire to help end the poorer health outcomes for those living in remote Australia.