Background To alleviate the difficulties of rural residents in receiving timely healthcare, the Chinese government launched a medical rural‐aid program that solicited urban medical professionals to go to rural hospitals for a 1‐year tenure. However, many of urban doctors did not accomplish this task. In this study, we attempted to investigate the reasons behind the failure to fulfill this program and to explore a more feasible solution. Methods Eleven doctors and nurses participated in the focus group discussions. Twenty‐five interviewees, including health administrative officials, doctors and managers from both urban tertiary hospitals and county‐level hospitals, participated in semi‐structured in‐depth telephone interviews. The interview data were summarized and analyzed using the grounded theory. Results The failure of this program was attributed to multiple causes, such as problems with the recipient hospitals, the support hospitals and the participating doctors, and overall defects in the program strategy itself. One major reason is the competition between the recipient hospitals and the support hospitals, which distorted the original purpose of this rural‐aid program. Conclusion The rural‐aid program strategy should be adjusted. The recipient hospitals should be township‐level health centers rather than county‐level hospitals. In addition, the relevant policies should be amended and improved accordingly. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.