ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the objective of analysis, namely, behavioral patterns typical of the partners in the health dyad. It focuses on the provision of health care and describes the variations in professional education of the village doctors in HeBei Province and explores whether they can be associated with medical practice and behavior. The chapter also focuses on considerations that are unique to rural China, though they have relevance to other developing countries as well. It deals with universal issues of health care and patterns of professional behavior that are constantly debated in both post-industrial and industrially developing societies. During the massive extension of the health services into rural China, the typical health vocational education consisted of apprentice-like training in a local health center. The chapter considers the professional training and continuing education of village doctors who first received permits to practice medicine before the economic reforms, between the economic reforms and the 1985 licensing policy, and after 1985.
