ABSTRACT
This chapter reports on a modest attempt to approach this topic through a series of interviews with a small sample of mainly rural practitioners. To legislate for general practitioners what were the ‘problems’ of general practice would, in other words, defeat the object of the enterprise. If general practice is cottage industry compared with the modern industrial enterprise of hospital medicine, then this character should be best typified in single-handed practice in remote areas. The chapter examines in short then, ‘remote area practice’ is by no means a homogeneous category and some of the variations along these two dimensions, location and resources. Until fairly recently general practice appeared to be the Cinderella of the National Health Service, relegated in some discussions to a role which is little more than that of a ‘referral agency’. But more traditional forms of general practice persist even in cities, though they are understandably more in evidence in rural areas.
