BEIJING - Eighty "village doctors" from minority groups in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region started Wednesday a 14-day medical training program in Beijing sponsored by China Red Cross Foundation.

The program covers prevention and treatment of gynecology, paediatric and orthopedic diseases as well as legal issues that the so called village doctors may encounter in their work and theories concerning communicating with patients, according to the foundation.

The training program, initiated in 2006, has trained 3,266 doctors of 25 ethnic groups at the village level in 26 provinces.

"Households are sparsely scattered in the vast territory of Xinjiang. The training aims to improve the medical service of village doctors and better serve the farmers and herdsmen in the region," said Wang Zhi, a senior official with the foundation.

In July, China issued a guideline to ensure one clinic for each village or a "village doctor" for every 1,000 rural residents in order to improve rural health care services.