Objective　The study was designed to understand the education training situation and demand of rural doctors， identify problems in training and provide theoretical basis for the relevant government departments to further the development of rural doctors education， explore the pattern of rural health education and improve the effectiveness of training. Methods　The participants were a sample of rural doctors among the east and center-west region in China （Beijing Municipality， Jiangsu， Zhe－jiang， Hainan， Shanxi， Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region， Guizhou， Yunan and Gansu）. 20 288 questionnaires were issued， 18 259 of them were taken back， which occupied 90.1 % recovery rate. Group interview method and stratification-cluster sample method were conducted in the Cross-sectional study. Results　70.2% were male doctors

with an average age of 44.3 ±10.9 years， 63.0% of whom received technical school education and technical secondary school. Training time was mainly less than 12 days per year（48.8%）， training content was mainly about clinical skills （80.6%）， and traning mode was mainly conference traning （56.6%）. There was a certain gap between training status and de－mand. Conclusion　The on-site clinically guide-based， comprehensive and short-term non-job train－ing should be demand-orientedly carried out aiming at young doctors in rural areas.