Persuading medical doctors to work inrural areas is one of the main challenges facing healthpolicy makers, in both developing and developed countries.Discrete Choice Experiments (DCEs) have increasingly beenused to analyze the preferences of health workers, and howthey would respond to alternative incentives associated withworking in a rural location. Previous DCE studies focusingon the rural recruitment and retention problem have sampledeither in-service health workers or students in the finalyear of their training program. This study is the first tosample both of these groups in the same setting. It carryout a DCE to compare how doctors and final-year medicalstudents in Vietnam value six job attributes, and use theresults to simulate the impact of alternative incentivepackages on recruitment in rural areas. Results showsignificant differences between the two groups. The locationof workplace (rural or urban) was by far the most importantattribute for doctors; for medical students it was long-termeducation. More surprising, however, was the magnitude ofthe differences: there was fivefold difference inwillingness-to-pay estimates for some job attributes. Thesedifferences strongly suggest that policy makers in Vietnamshould consider moving away from the current uniformapproach to rectifying rural shortages and tailor separateincentive packages to students and doctors. The results alsosuggest that future DCE studies should carefully considerthe choice of sample if results are to be used for policy making.
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