This study aims to investigate the current situation of the enrollment , training model and career planning of medical students in the targeted admission program .After analyzing the implementation process of this targeted admission policy in medical education , we raised some feasible strategies to increase the attraction and reten-tion of health professionals in rural China .The study covered 4 medical universities in central and western China .A cohort of 308 medical graduates from this targeted admission program were recruited in June 2015 .A baseline survey , including questionnaire survey , in-depth interviews and the focus group discussions , were conducted right before their graduation .The first follow-up online survey was done 6 months after their graduation .he findings of this investiga-tion show that 72.9%of the investigated students in the program used to live in rural areas before 15 years old.The average annual household income was 28,200 Yuan.The top three reasons of choosing this program were guaranteed job after graduation , low performance in the college entrance examination , and wavier of tuition fee .There were sig-nificant differences of implementation of this policy between different provinces , especially the contract-signing and job deployment .Income and working environment were the main influencing factors of the medical graduates 'job-see-king intention .Based on the findings of this study , it can be concluded that the targeted admission program is rather successful in attracting medical graduates for rural health services .However , extra efforts are needed to improve the implementation of the policy and to retain the medical graduates in rural area .

Objective: In order to describe the employment status of the first group of targeted admission medical graduates, evaluate the effects of targeted admission medical education program, find out the existing problems and provide relevant policy recommendations.Methods: This study conducted follow-up survey among 305 medical graduates and 315 clinical medical graduates in four medical colleges of the central and western regions.Data analyses of the contract fulfillment, their employment status, and their participation in the standardized residency training are carried out.Results: The contract fulfillment rate of rural-oriented medical graduates is 99.3%, while the percentages of rural-oriented medical graduates and clinical medical graduates are 90.7% and 2.8%, respectively.Their average monthly incomes are respectively 2,011 and 2,774 yuan, and their proportions of participating in standardized residency training are 77.8% and 43.3% respectively.From the findings it can be seen that the employment situation of the first group of targeted admission medical graduates in four medical colleges and universities is quite good, but the policy implementation process in terms of permanent post and income is less satisfactory.However, the way how medical graduates should participate in the standardized residency training is not yet clearly regulated.This paper recommends that medical colleges and universities should well coordinate with local health administrative departments and human resources and social security departments to systematically deploy medical graduates.At the same time, full consultations should be conducted to make appropriate arrangement for medical graduates to participate in standardized residency training.