The training of targeted admission medical students (TAMS) is an important measure to alleviate the shortage of primary care physicians and to improve the overall quality and level of primary care workforce in rural China.

To explore the recent hot topics, present and future trends in the research on TAMS in China, so that a solid theoretical foundation can be laid for future studies.

All articles about the training of TAMS published from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2021 in three databases (i.e., CNKI, WanFang Data and CQVIP) were searched on February 15, 2022. The number of the articles was counted for analysis. CiteSpace was used to conduct a visualization analysis of authors, research institutions and keywords extracted from the identified articles.

A total of 598 articles were finally included. The annual number of publications demonstrated an increasing trend generally during the period, with a peak in 2018 (n=81) . Five major groups of authors were identified. The top three prolific institutions were Gannan Medical University〔113 articles (18.9%) 〕, Guangxi Medical University〔40 articles (6.7%) 〕 and Xinxiang Medical University〔28 articles (4.7%) 〕. The top three high-frequency keywords were "order-oriented" (70 times) , "targeted admission students" (57 times) and "talent cultivation" (44 times) . Eight topic clusters were derived from keyword cluster mapping, namely "#0 learning motivation" "#1 teaching model" "#2 order-oriented cultivation" "#3 influencing factors" "#4 general medicine" "#5 primary care" "#6 medical college" and "#7 medical students". Knowledge map of keywords with the strongest citation bursts showed that the top three were "career identity" "major identity" and "rural primary care". The time-dependent graph indicated that the evolution of research on the training of TAMS could be roughly divided into three stages: education and training for TAMS at school, post-graduation training and education of TAMS, and current work status of TAMS in primary care.

The research on the training of TAMS in China is increasingly flourishing. Relevant policies are the major facilitators for the training of TAMS. The research is also featured by lack of inter-regional and inter-institutional coordination among related research institutions and authors. Moreover, the hotspots are constantly changing with the times, and the major topics about which can be summarized as follows: training models for TAMS, learning motivation of TAMS, and intention to work at primary care and associated factors in TAMS. The future research directions may be the evaluation of current work status and intention to work at primary care in a long-term period in TAMS, effectiveness of the implementation of policies related to the training of TAMS, and the innovative development of training models for TAMS.

农村订单定向医学生（简称定向医学生）的免费培养工作是缓解农村地区基层医生匮乏、提升基层医疗卫生队伍整体素质和水平的重要举措。

探索我国定向医学生培养的研究热点、研究动态和未来趋势，为后续研究提供参考。

于2022-02-15，在中国知网、万方数据知识服务平台、维普网中检索2010-01-01至2021-12-31发表的关于定向医学生培养相关论文，统计其发文量，运用CiteSpace软件对样本文献作者、研究机构、关键词进行知识图谱的可视化分析。

共纳入598篇文献，关于定向医学生培养研究的文献量呈上升趋势，2018年达到历年顶峰（n=81）。该领域存在5个大的作者群，发文量排在前3位的机构为赣南医学院〔113篇（18.9%）〕、广西医科大学〔40篇（6.7%）〕及新乡医学院〔28篇（4.7%）〕。关键词词频排在前3位的分别是"订单定向"（70次）、"定向生"（57次）、"人才培养"（44次）。关键词聚类图谱得到"#0学习动力""#1教学模式""#2定向培养""#3影响因素""#4全科医学""#5基层""#6医学院""#7医学生"8个聚类主题。最强突现词显示，排在前3位的突现词是"职业认同""专业认同""农村基层"。关键词时区分布图谱显示我国定向医学生的研究大致可分为3个阶段的演化路径：定向医学生在校教育培养阶段，定向医学毕业生毕业后培养教育阶段，定向医学毕业生基层工作现状阶段。

我国定向医学生培养领域的研究日益蓬勃，政策是推动定向医学生培养的重要因素，研究机构与作者间缺乏跨区域、跨机构协作，研究热点也随着时代发展不断变化，其主题可归纳为定向医学生的人才培养模式、学习动力及基层就业意愿与影响因素三类，未来的研究方向可能是定向医学生基层工作现状与长期工作意愿、培养政策实施效果评价及培养模式创新发展。