Country doctors, government doctors, village doctors, they have been called many names since the Ottoman times. Today, physicians working in rural areas, especially in remote, mountainous areas with no easy access to urban health care, provide top-notch services for rural citizens.

Since 2003, family physicians, normally assigned to neighborhood clinics, work as "modern" village doctors for people who cannot easily travel to towns for health care needs. Part of the government’s efforts for modernizing health care, the program provides preventive and basic health care services through thousands of physicians and nurses for areas spanning remote communities in Edirne in northwesternmost Türkiye to mountainous villages of Kars on the eastern tip of the country.

The Sabah newspaper accompanied one such team of health care workers as they visited villages in Hizan, a district of the eastern Turkish province of Bitlis. The team, joined by the head of the Hizan Directorate of Health, Zübeyde Özdemir, traveled through vast valleys, climbing up to remote villages on the slopes, which are counting down to a harsh winter when roads are usually closed. Nuh village is the farthest from central Hizan, some 63 kilometers (39 miles) away, perched atop a mountain. The crew drives along crooked, bumpy roads and arrives at the village after a ride of two hours. The village, where some 300 people live, is often inaccessible during the winter due to heavy snowfall and for most people, the only connection to central Hizan is a small minibus, which operates sporadically. Villagers often have to wait for weeks for a routine health check at hospitals and clinics in Bitlis. So, the visit of mobile crews is a great relief for locals.

Villagers gather either at the village square, in the courtyard of the school or in the residence of the mukhtar (village headman) for health checks. This time, they are convened in the courtyard as health care worker Zeynep Salçan invites pregnant women and children in need of routine vaccination and health checks. Children instinctively flee, shouting "derzi," Kurdish for "needle," after she produced one from her bag. Salçan, who has worked in the region for the past three years, is accustomed to the children’s behavior and patiently waits for them and their families. Adults are more eager as they walk to the courtyard. Pregnant women report their health problems while the crew examines each, giving supplementary vitamins to some. They also check newborns and infants, measuring their height and weight and inoculating children with missing routine jabs for protection against potential diseases. An expectant mother asks for a transfer to a hospital in Hizan, and the crew arranges a vehicle for her.

Devran Gültekin, a local, hails the visit. "We are pleased with their work. They check on babies’ health, give them jab," Gültekin says.

Hizan, a district of about 35,000 people, is home to 76 villages and 120 slightly larger settlements called "mezra." A total of 11 family physicians accompanied by health care crews serve the population. Each physician and their crew pay four visits to the villages every month.

Physician Mehmet Emin Ataman and health care worker Harun Topluk head to Yaylalı mezra for such a visit. They first vaccinate two children with the tetanus vaccine, while a woman seeing them seeks an appointment. She says she suffered from a fall nine days ago and talks about her pain. When Ataman asks her why she did not seek treatment in Hizan, she naively says, "You come to us anyway." From there, Ataman and Topluk visit Koyunlu village, just as a slight snowfall hits the place. There, they vaccinate two babies.