'I was born for this. It draws on all the different bits of my career'

Jane Farmer, a specialist in healthcare for rural areas, has found her niche in the remote Scottish Highlands.

Jane Farmer, newly appointed to a chair at the UHI Millennium Institute, admits she has had a "circuitous" career.

After taking an English and history degree at St Andrews University, she worked for a local authority, then took a postgraduate diploma in information studies at Robert Gordon University before going to Grampian Health Board as information manager. She returned to RGU to lecture in information and media for eight years, then moved to Aberdeen University as senior research fellow investigating rural health issues, before becoming a senior lecturer in the university's business school.

She is now UHI's professor of rural health policy and management, based in Inverness. "I think I was born for this," she said. "To me, it's the perfect job because it draws on all the things I've had an interest in, in all the different bits of my career."

UHI, a network of colleges and research institutes across the sparsely populated Highlands and Islands, faces the same challenges as rural health, she said. It has had to find innovative ways of bringing higher education to a dispersed population, forging links with the region's development agency and local business and capitalising on new technology. "There's really fresh thinking up here," Professor Farmer said.

She believes the Highlands and Islands could become the catalyst for revolutionary rural healthcare methods worldwide. "We hope to lead rural health policy decisions, with excellent evidence that will be of benefit to the Government, managers, health professionals and patients," she said.