Strides in Development of Medical Education
Volume:3 Issue: 2, 2006

Special attention to medical education and hospital expense were the main reasons to develop a new fee-for service program (CARANEH) in educational hospitals. The main objectives of this program were to improve medical education via encouraging faculty members, and to support the educational hospitals financially. The objective of this study was to evaluate the opinions of clinical faculty members of Isfahan University of Medical Science about the efficacy of CARANEH program in providing educational services. In this cross-sectional study, 69 clinical faculty members who were directly involved in medical education and CARANEH program were asked to fill out a questionnaire designed in four domains. According to the results, faculty members did not have enough information about the content of CARANEH program. Moreover, 60% of the respondents believed that CARANEH had not increased attendance of clinical faculty members in their due educational activities. In addition, more than 65% believed that CARANEH had not improved undergraduate and postgraduate education. According to the respondents, major priorities in improving medical education are respectively improving educational facilities in hospital wards (87.5%), libraries (85.2%) and audio-visual section (84.3%) According to these results, it seems that CARANEH program has been an unsuccessful program in improving medical education in educational hospitals. Even though the theoretical concept of CARANEH had been based on improving medical education, but practically the idea has not worked successfully. Therefore, its precise revision can increase its efficacy in this regard.

Higher education is growing fast and every day it is more and more exposed to the globalization processes. The quality of educational Services, with emphasis on students’ satisfaction, is a newly emerging field of concern. This study was carried out to determine the quality gap of educational services based on students’ perceptions and expectations in Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences. In this cross-sectional study, 300 students were selected randomly and asked to fill out a questionnaire designed according to SERVQUAL method. This questionnaire measures students’ perceptions and expectations in five dimensions of educational services including assurance, responsiveness, empathy, reliability and tangibles. Quality gap of educational services was determined by calculating the difference between students’ perceptions and expectations. According to the results, there were negative quality gaps in all of the five dimensions. The greatest gap (-1.14) was in responsiveness dimension followed respectively by empathy (-0.95), assurance (-0.89), tangibles (-0.84) and reliability (-0.71). There were significant differences among the means of quality gap in all of the five domains (p=0.0001). Negative quality gap of educational services indicates that students’ expectations are more than their perceptions and in none of the studied dimensions; students’ perceptions have met their expectations. Thus, in planning for the improvement of educational services quality, students’ expectations, especially in the dimensions with higher negative gaps should be considered as priority

Assessing the statue of educational services in schools of Paramedical Sciences can help authorities to plan for further promotion through identifying school's strengths and weaknesses. To design criteria and indices for educational ranking of associate programs of Paramedical Sciences including Laboratory Sciences, Operating Room Nursing, Technology of Radiology, Anesthesiology, Nuclear Medicine, Technology of Radiotherapy and Medical Emergencies in Iran. In an expert committee, criteria used in worldwide rankings and medical education standards were reviewed. Then a set of criteria and indices which were compatible to Iran educational system was devised and their weights were defined through consensus developing methods. Each school was asked to introduce a representative to collect schools’ information and schools were visited to verify the gathered data. Then school's scores for each criterion were calculated. A set of 42 criteria sorted as a tree diagram was devised. Main branches of this tree included input branch consisting of National Entrance Examination (Weight: 2%), faculty members (weight: 18%), and facilities and equipment (weight: 20%), process branch consisting of administrations (weight: 40.5%) and support and counseling systems (weight: 4.5%) and output branch consisting of student's output (weight: 9%) and faculty member's output (weight: 6%). This study provided the educational strengths and weaknesses of Paramedical Sciences programs in Iran. The results can be used in devising practical strategies for qualitative and quantitative improvement.

Human health is strongly related to economic, political, cultural, administrative and environmental conditions. Therefore, Medical sciences are not limited to biomedical sciences but also include social and psychological sciences. This viewpoint has led to an outlook named Community-Oriented Medicine. After integration of Health System with Medical Education in Iran, conditions for Community- oriented Medical Education were provided and the departments of "Community Medicine" in universities with Faculty of Health and departments of "Health and Community Medicine" in universities without "Faculty of Health" were established. In spite of various attempts, there is still no evidence showing the outputs and outcomes of Community-oriented activities in Community Medicine Departments of our universities. This study was performed to determine the statue of Community Medicine Departments of all Medical Sciences schools and Universities of Iran in regard to their facilities and resources. In this descriptive cross- sectional study some inputs and outputs of educational and research processes of departments of Community Medicine in all Medical Sciences Universities affiliated to the Ministry of Health, Treatment and Medical Education were analyzed. Educational facilities and learning aids of first class universities were to some extent adequate but inadequate in the two other classes. Community Medicine Departments in all three classes of universities were active in conducting students’ theses but they were not very active in publishing books and articles and conducting research projects. Transition from traditional Medical Education to the community-oriented Medical Education requires short-term and long-term programs for improving Community Medicine Departments and making them closer to standard goals.

Comprehensive evaluation of educational systems involves the evaluation of programs and performances of the whole administrative system as well as schools and educational departments. In accreditation model, a recently emerged model, internal evaluation is the first step and it ensures the internal quality of universities. To determine the educational statue of educational groups in Kerman School of Medicine from 1994-1998 through internal evaluation as the first step of accreditation. In this descriptive study, educational performance indicator including drop out rate, waste rate, survival rate, average of study duration and rejection rate of Kerman Medical students admitted from 1994-98 (n= 486) were determined by using Report Cards of Students. From all studied subjects, 250 students were female and 239 were male. The waste rate of the total examined students was 3.7%, the rejection rate was 3.5%, Average of study duration was 15.25 semesters, drop out rate was 0.8% and promotion rate was 96.5%. The rejection rates of the non-quota and quota students were respectively 2.5%, 7.7%. The minimum rejection rate (3%) was in year 1996 and the maximum rejection rate (3.9%) was in year 1994. The maximum rejection rates were related to the second semester of the first year in admitted students of 1995(16.3%), 1996(12%) and 1998(10.4%). In all academic years, the maximum failure rates were for basic sciences and specialized courses (6.7%). Since the maximum rejection rate in all three studied years is related to the second semester of first year and the maximum failure rate was found for basic sciences and specialized courses, it is necessary that educational authorities as well as the educational programmers review the lesson arrangement and contents of these courses.

Health behaviors refer to activities done for maintaining, supporting and improving individual health status regardless of actual or present health status. There are some evidences showing direct relationship between health behavior and educational success. This study was done to determine the relationship between self-esteem and self-efficacy with health behaviors among students of Yazd Shahid Sadooghi University of Medical Sciences. This correlational study was performed on 309 students selected by stratified random sampling. Data gathering was done by using a questionnaire that its validity and reliability had been approved respectively by experts and calculating kronbachs-alpha coefficient (0.78 for self-esteem, 87% for self-efficacy and 0.74 for health behavior). According to the results, students got 60.7% of the self-esteem score, 62.3% of the self-efficacy score and 74.8% of the health behavior score. Health behavior showed significant relationship with self-esteem (r= 0.14, P=0.013) and self-efficacy (r= 0.31, P=0.0001). Regression analysis showed that age, sex, family size, self-esteem and self-efficacy all together explain 15.9% of health behaviors variance and among them, self-efficacy was the most important predicting factor. Health behavior in studied students was favorable in general, but it was poor in regard to physical activity. Since the results of this study showed the relationship of self-esteem and self- efficacy with health behaviors and role of these factors on educational success, planning for improving self-esteem, self- efficacy and consequently health behaviors are recommended.

The importance of adequate training of Medical students in regard to the reading and interpretation of ECG is obvious and there are various studies about new methods of teaching ECG interpretation.

This study was aimed to determine the effect of teaching ECG interpretation in workshops and to compare it with current method of ECG training in Isfahan University of Medical Sciences.

This experimental study was done on two groups of students using pre-test/ post-test design. For this purpose, 88 Medical students of an academic semester admitted to the university in the same year were selected and randomly divided into two groups of experimental group (taught in the workshop), and control group (taught by the current method) during Internal Medicine Ward.

In whole, 88 students participated in the study of whom 45 were in the experimental group and 43 ones in the control group. In the experimental group mean (±SD) scores of the pre-test (6±1.1) and post-test test (17±.7) showed a significant difference (p=0.0001). Mean difference of pre- and post-test scores in experimental group was significantly higher than that in the control group (P=0.0001). Eighty five percent of students in the control group believed on the inefficacy of ECG training in the current educational system, while, 83.80% of participants in the experimental group believed on the efficacy of ECG workshop on their learning.

Using new educational methods to improve the quality of educational system and to provide some new opportunities for students to learn by more initiative ways are highly necessary. The obtained results showed clearly the efficacy of the new method comparing to the current one.

Suitable nutrition is an important aspect in every stage of life, particularly in puberty stage of females. One of the important priorities of medical education is improving the quality of educational programs in regard to the puberty nutrition in middle school girls. The aim of this study was to determine and compare the effects of three teaching methods of lecture, training games and role playing on knowledge and practice of middle school girls in regard to puberty nutrition. In this quasi-experimental research, six first grade classes from girls’ middle schools of four distracts in Mashhad were selected randomly. The students of these classes (n=174) were randomly divided into three groups of lecture (taught by giving lecture), game (taught by playing games) and role playing (taught by role playing). Each group participated in two 45-minute training sessions about puberty nutrition. The student's knowledge and practice were evaluated by acceptable valid and reliable questionnaire and checklist before, immediately after and one month after the training sessions. According to the results, mean (±standard deviation) knowledge scores of students immediately after intervention were 49.9 (±11.5) in lecture group, 57 (±8.9) in game group and 61 (±12) in role playing group that showed significant increase [respectively 20.1 (±11.6), 29 (±11) and 30.5 (±11.5)] compared to before the intervention. Mean knowledge score immediately after and one month after holding training sessions were significantly different in all three groups (P<0.0001). In role playing and game group knowledge increase was more significant comparing to the lecture group. Also, the consistency of practice in role playing group was significantly more than that in the other groups (P<0.001). It is recommended that in programs of health education in schools, especially those related to the nutrition in puberty period, more effective and dynamic methods adjusted to the educational objectives are used. Methods such as training games and role playing cause active participation of learners and not only increase the output of educational programs, but also lead to more consistency of the acquired knowledge and practice.