The initial pool of barefoot doctors required no education or training as they were sourced from healthcare providers already working in rural areas as well as urban doctors. As Gross (2018) mentions, an important part of Mao's plan was the movement of sending doctors, to serve in the countryside (). Mao pushed for medical school graduates to be sent to work in rural areas, where he felt they could help the rural inhabitants while, as Gross (2018) and Fang (2012) explain, also redistributing talent from urban to rural areas. They would live in an area for half a year to a year and continue the education of the barefoot doctors. According to Fang's (2012) research on Hangzhou Prefecture, many of the urban doctors sent to rural areas were quite unhappy about their fate. Hesketh and Wei (1997), on the other hand, mention that although some were unhappy, other urban doctors were grateful for the lessons they learned while living as peasants. In fact, being sent to rural areas was often seen as a punishment because of the lower wages and challenges of rural living.