ABSTRACT
The introduction to Rural Healthcare, written by its editors, asks what is different about rural healthcare and what does an undergraduate or postgraduate student or practising healthcare professional need to know? Differences between rural and urban practice include demography, relative inaccessibility of services, lack of public transport, different diseases such as zoonoses and hidden rural social exclusion. It goes on to discuss how climate change and progress in point-of-care investigations, artificial intelligence, machine learning, wearable devices such as smart watches, genetics, robotics and drone technology could offer potential improvements in rural healthcare.
