About the Authors

Jude Kornelsen

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

jude.kornelsen@familymed.ubc.ca

Affiliation Centre for Rural Health Research, Department of Family Practice, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Audrey Cameron

Roles Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Centre for Rural Health Research, Department of Family Practice, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Kathrin Stoll

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Centre for Rural Health Research, Department of Family Practice, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Tom Skinner

Contributed equally to this work with: Tom Skinner, Sean Ebert

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Project administration, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Rural Coordination Centre of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Nancy Humber

Roles Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing

‡ NH and KW also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation Rural Coordination Centre of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Kim Williams

Roles Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing

‡ NH and KW also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation Rural Coordination Centre of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Sean Ebert

Contributed equally to this work with: Tom Skinner, Sean Ebert

Roles Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Rural Coordination Centre of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Competing Interests

Sean Ebert received sessional funding from the Rural Coordination Centre of BC (RCCbc) in his role as medical lead for the Quality Improvement Pillar for the Rural Surgical and Obstetrical Networks (RSON) initiative. In his capacity as medical lead he received funding to travel to the rural communities where the participants we report on in this manuscript work and provide care. Tom Skinner is employed by the Rural Coordination Centre of BC (RCCbc) as the Project Manager of the RSON Initiative. The findings reported in the survey are part of the evaluation of RSON. As an employee, his travel to the rural communities were covered because he was supporting hospital teams in implementing the PROES survey and interpreting the result. Kim Williams received salary funding from the Rural Coordination Centre of BC (RCCbc) in her capacity as administrative co-lead for the Rural Surgical and Obstetrical Networks (RSON) initiative. She received funding to travel to the rural communities where the participants whom we report on in this manuscript work and provide care. Nancy Humber received funding from the Rural Coordination Centre of BC (RCCbc) in her role as a clinical lead for the Rural Surgical Obstetrical Network. In her capacity as a clinical lead, she received funding for travel to the rural communities where the participants whom we report on in this manuscript work and provide care. All other authors are part of the RSON evaluation team at the University of British Columbia, Canada and have no conflicts of interest to declare. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.