SUMMARY
Context: Rural population of India is grossly underserved by healthcare professionals. Gap exits between health services for urban and rural communities.Aims: 1) To determine the attitude of medical students towards serving rural areas and factors affecting it. 2) To explore reasons behind willingness and unwillingness to work in rural areas. Study setting and design: It was a cross-sectional study conducted in medical colleges.Materials and Methods: Among three medical colleges in city, two medical colleges were selected by simple random sampling using lottery method. All 450 undergraduate medical students in both selected medical colleges were included into the study. Statistical analysis used: Binary logistic regression analysis, Odds ratio, Chi-square test and percentages were used to analyse the data.Results: 35.82% medical students were interested in working at rural areas. Age, parental education, place of residence, type of college and year of undergraduation of medical students had significant association with their preference towards rural practice. Social service was commonest reason students being interested in working rural area while scarcity of health facilities was major cause for negative attitude towards rural practice.Conclusions: Majority of medical students were not in favour of working in rural areas. Urban rural disparity was more obvious among Allopathy students. There is need to focus on working environment at rural areas as lack of amenities in the rural areas was a common reason behind unwillingness of studentstowards rural practice.Keywords: Doctors, Medical students, Rural practice.