Job market for a rural general surgeon is excellent and you can find a job in any state.
It completely depends on the set up and what the expectations are. Pay is usually quite high, and often there are significant non-salary incentives (think loan repayment, housing stipends, etc) that aren’t there for jobs in more saturated markets. There is a job right now I know of that is 800k starting and significant bonuses/loan repayment (it’s in the middle of nowhere in a state a lot of people don’t want to live in)
Some places expect you to always be on call, or to be on call Q2 with a single partner. But in some places that call may be very light, with only a few calls a week. In other places you might simply be contracted for X days of call a month and the other days they simply don’t have coverage and have to send those patients out. Other places you might get crushed with call. It’s all in the details of the contract and you need to ask very specific questions
Most rural GS jobs have a heavy endoscopy component, think 40-50%. Everything else is usually bread and butter GB, appy, hernia, basic colon, skin/soft tissue, some do dialysis access, etc. Some rural GS do c-section (mainly just the technician and a rural FM is the actual “OB” and you’re just there to cut and get the baby out).
A lot of rural places treat their surgeons excellent, because you are the money maker for the hospital. It can take years to recruit a surgeon for some of these hospitals.