Explaining the Experiences of Professors and Medical Students of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences regarding Clinical Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic

With the spread of the Covid-19 virus, the medical staff were among the first people who were at risk of this contagious disease due to close contact with these patients. Students of medical sciences, who in the not-so-distant future will have to serve as medical staff in the health system, have an urgent need to receive appropriate quality education. Considering the importance of clinical education, it is felt necessary to examine the views of medical students and professors in the era of Covid-19. Ensuring the proper quality of education during the pandemic period, determining the challenges and needs of students of medical sciences is of great importance, and this study was designed and carried out qualitatively with the main purpose of examining the experiences of medical students and professors from clinical education during the covid-19 pandemic period.Materials &  This research is a qualitative study and the data analysis was done with the contractual content analysis approach proposed by Gernheim and Lundman in 2023, on 12 members of the medical faculty of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, medical students in internship, externship, residency and fellowship. Through targeted sampling, a semi-structured interview was conducted until data saturation was reached in about 20 minutes interview. The accuracy and robustness of the data were confirmed by the method of Lincoln and Goba. The data analysis led to the extraction of 120 primary codes, which include 5 main categories and 39 subclasses. The 5 main categories include psychological and physical problems, treatment and educational policies, quality and infrastructure of clinical education, quality of educational evaluation and strategies for improving the quality of clinical education. Clinical education has suffered due to the policies of education in the direction of dividing and reducing the physical presence of students, and the lack of ability to hold virtual lessons due to the contrast of virtual education with clinical education is a very serious challenge according to the interviewees of education research.