Table 5 Themes 2 and 3 pressures of job and isolation

Urban background

• “There’s a whole lot of hard work with little acknowledgement. A rural doctor is understaffed, under resourced and constantly fighting a battle that never seems to end.”

• “A rural doctor may be placed on-call more often than a city doctor, or even permanently. This can make it hard to separate work and life for rural doctors.”

• “You are one of the very few doctors within a certain area and may be required to be extensively ‘on call’.”

• “At times you could feel disconnected from the world. Distance from family and technology often hinders and fogs the decision making.”

Rural background

• “Rural GPs may also find, particularly in small communities, that there may be a sole practitioner or have limited colleagues …can lead to a sense of professional isolation whereby rural GPs can’t afford the luxury of a direct second opinion.”

• “Rural doctor may be it driving seven hours to run a clinic or being the only doctor in the town hospital....there may be times when isolation can be overwhelming effecting their mental health.”

• “If the doctor makes a wrong decision regarding the treatment of a patient, he would be defamed quite quickly in the community.”