Future of Medical Education Journal
Volume:11 Issue: 2, Jun 2021

 Competency-based program is one of the effective approaches that has attracted the policy makers’ attention in the process of medical education and promotion of its quality. Regarding the important role of this approach, this research aims to evaluate the professional competency-based curriculum of radiology residents at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. This research is a descriptive-survey study investigating the opinions of radiology residents and professors. The participants were 90 radiology residents and 16 board members who were selected by census. The research tool was a researcher-made questionnaire including 35 items classified in 9 categories. The questionnaire was used after evaluating its reliability and validity. All the items were reliable regarding the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.7. Data analysis was done by descriptive and inferential statistics (one-sample t-test and independent t-test). According to the radiology residents’ and professors’ viewpoints, all the nine elements of the residency program (goals, contents, learning-teaching strategies, Learning activities, materials, education time, education space, grouping, and evaluation) are above the medium level and there is no difference between the residents’ and professors’ viewpoints. Investigating the competency approach, the elements of the curriculum, and the competency-based education of residency program can be effective in promotion of clinical performance. According to the results of this study, the studied radiology residency program corresponds to Klein’s nine elements.

In Iran, the medical education system was integrated with the healthcare provision system in 1985 and finally, it led to the creation of a new ministry titled “Ministry of Health and Medical Education”. Regarding this integration has created some problems, the current study intended to provide an effective pattern for improvement of this integration. The present study is both fundamental and applied in terms of objective. The statistical population of the client study included all of the managers, faculty members and experts in the universities of medical sciences in Khuzestan Province, in southwestern Iran, who were chosen by the use of full census sampling. Finally, 103 people filled in the questionnaires. The data collection instrument was a researcher-devised questionnaire. The data analysis was done by SPSS Ver.24, the descriptive statistics (percentage, mean, and standard deviation), and the inferential statistics (Pearson Correlation Test). In order to increase the effectiveness of this integration, four scenarios were suggested among which, finally “the separation of the medical education from the medical sciences universities and placing under direct supervision of the Minister of Health and Medical Education” with 3.84 (based on a maximum score of 4) achieved the highest score. Based on this score, a model based on the upstream laws of Iran was designed and suggested and in each province, instead of having a unit and independent institution under the title of the university of medical sciences and healthcare services, two separate institutions as “The Provincial University of Medical Sciences” and “The Provincial Health Service Organization” would be created and would work under the supervision of Minister of Health and Medical Education. The results of this study showed that medical education in the health ministry supervised universities is affected by the discussions of the provision of the health and medical care provision. Therefore, to realize it and improve the educational tasks, production of knowledge, and conducting of research in the universities, and protecting it from other departments, an effective pattern has been suggested.

The study aimed to describe the procedures implemented by medical colleges in Pakistan to assure quality in their assessment system. A qualitative study was conducted from March 2015-December 2017 in medical colleges of Pakistan using grounded theory design. The medical colleges were selected by using non-probability convenient sampling technique. Out of the total 93 PMDC (Pakistan Medical and Dental Council) recognized medical colleges, 49 were selected from all four provinces of Pakistan as well as Azad Kashmir. An open-ended questionnaire was filled by one faculty member from each participating medical college after obtaining informed consent. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 21 (IBM). Majority participants appreciated their institution’s assessment policy and wished improvement in terms of comparability to national organization’s assessment systems. For about 1/3rd of participants developing standardized tools, their grading (e.g. SEQs), and faculty’s unwillingness to devote time for quality MCQ were the challenges. Recommendations by > 1/3rd to overcome barriers included one assessment per year, improvement in teaching methods, standardized assessment, and structured viva exams. In >1/2 institutions no audit of assessment process was conducted. Around 1/3rd confirmed audit was an irregular unplanned activity and no report published. Around 1/4th of participants highlighted that a formal audit report stemmed in improving teaching & examination methods. Overall Quality Assurance (QA) procedures in assessment system in Pakistan were poorly implemented. Lack of QA and Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E), feedback mechanism, benchmarks for assessors, and formal auditing was noted. Student’s involvement, & semester system was recommended.

 Universities are the first line of social capital production centers in every society, among which the medical universities are the most important because of their great duties to promote common health services and educate professional students. Despite this, there is no standard social capital assessment tool in medical science university in Persian. Therefore, the present study was designed to develop a tool for measuring social capital in Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, in order to improve the level of social capital of faculty members, staff and managers to have a significant impact on the development of this index in the field of health education and student performance.  Integrating quantitative and qualitative method has been applied in the present study in Mashhad University of medical sciences during 2019-2020. In the quantitative part, different variables affecting on social capital, obtained using related literature reviews and then they were finalized using Delphi method and expert panels' opinions. In the qualitative part, the proper questionnaire prepared and data analysis performed using structural equation method. Finally, descriptive statistics methods were used to characterize the sociological   features of the sample and confirmatory factor analysis was used to evaluate the social capital model, using SPSS software version 20 and LISREL version 8.8.  We found 7 dimensions for social capital questionnaire and 27 components affecting on social capital dimensions. We also found that there are more different factors influencing on social capital such as structural, communicational, cognitive, management, organizational, group and individual. Also, the overall reliability of the Social Capital Questionnaire was calculated to be 0.893 in Cronbach's alpha, which indicates the high reliability of the research instrument, moreover the calculated values of t for each factor load of each indicator with its hidden structure or variable is above 1.96. Therefore, the Validity of the questionnaire questions to measure the concepts can be validated.  Based on the findings of this study; we observed that effective components to develop the social capital model in Mashhad university of medical sciences include the component of social accountability system in the structural dimension of social capital, trust in the communication dimension of social capital, perception of justice and job satisfaction in the individual dimension of social capital and knowledge sharing in the organizational dimension of social capital. These components should be socially noticed by university faculty members.

Clinical reasoning is one of the core features of clinical competency. Training and assessing clinical reasoning is vital in post-graduate training. Extended matching questions(EMQs) are effective in assessing problem-solving and clinical reasoning abilities, but not commonly used in Postgraduate training. Covid-19 pandemic, which prevented both patient encounter and regular academic activities, warranted the introduction of innovative Teaching-Learning methods to sustain clinical reasoning skills. Hence, we aimed to introduce EMQs in formative assessment among anaesthesia residents and analyzed its psychometric properties. 

The study was conducted at the Department of Anaesthesiology, MGMCRI, Pondicherry. Four modules of EMQs as part of a formative assessment was conducted among residents (n=20). A total of 40 clinical vignettes and 60 options were administered. Post-validation of the EMQs was done by item analysis. Test reliability was estimated by the Kuder-Richardson 20 formula. Difficulty index(DIF-I), discrimination index(DIS-I), and distractor functionality were analysed.

The KR-20 reliability coefficient was 0.72. The mean DIF-I was 0.43±0.17, where 72.5%(29) were in the acceptable range, 20%(8) difficult, and 7.5%(3) easy. The mean DIS-I was 0.28±0.24, where 40%(16) had acceptable, 27.5%(11) excellent, and 20% had poor discrimination. Ninety percent of distractors were functional. The DIS-I exhibited a positive correlation with DIF-I (r= 0.2155, P=0.0185).

The results of the present study indicates that EMQs have acceptable test reliability. The majority of the items (80%) followed the principles of MCQs. We conclude that EMQs can be effectively used as part of the postgraduate assessment to test higher-order knowledge and clinical competency.

 This study conducted to explore and compare the effectiveness of an online ground round between two groups of audiology and occupational therapy of Ahvaz Jundishpaur University of Medical Sciences (AJUMS) students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 The study groups of this analytical cross-sectional study consisted of all fourth-year undergraduate students of audiology and occupational therapy. After implementation of the online grand round, the satisfaction questionnaire and knowledge exam were completed by the students.

 The level of satisfaction in both groups was above average (average>3); however, there was a significant difference in the mean total score of satisfaction questionnaire between the two groups (P=0.00). The mean score of the knowledge exam was 6.46±1.59 and 6.28±1.89 in the audiology and occupational therapy groups, respectively. Nevertheless, there was no significant difference in the mean score of this exam between the two groups (P=0.78).

 The online grand round can play an effective role in transferring the teacher's experiences to students during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it is not possible to hold face-to-face classes.

One of the most important steps in diagnosis and treatment of diseases is taking a good medical history. Current medical history form of Ministry of Health and Medical Education in our country doesn’t have Review of System part. In this research quantity and quality of Interns’ recording ROS in a new form including this part was studied. This is a Quasi-experimental study. In control group current medical history form without ROS part and in the cases group new proposed form including ROS part were used to take medical history by interns. Quantity and quality of ROS writing were evaluated by Infectious Disease residents and specialists. All data were compared by K2 and Fisher T test in SPSS 24 software. In control group, 2% of interns had written ROS, all in incorrect place, with moderate quantity. In case group, ROS was written 100% in correct place, with quality of low, moderate, good, very good as 3%, 8%, 71% and 18% in order of frequency. Infectious disease residents’ and specialists’ satisfaction quality as low, moderate, good, very good were 8%, 14%, 72%, 6% and 7%, 15%, 71%, 7% in order with significant difference. (p <0.001) In conclusion we found significant relation between quality and quantity of recording data with using medical history form with ROS part by interns. It is proposed to change current form to a new one with ROS part.

Internationalizing education in universities has a positive effect on the quality of education and the position of a university in both short and long term .The purpose of this article is to examine the process of internationalization in order to strengthen the educational process in the field of specialization as well as to increase skills in higher education. In this review study, articles published in Persian and English journals in databases of Google scholar, ProQuest, Elsevier, PubMed, ISI (Web of Science), Barakatkns, AND Scopus were used. Searching articles were mainly using the keywords of internationalization, innovation, medical education, health education in Persian language and their English equivalent in Latin databases. The paper-selection process was based on the following strategy: At the end of the search, 130 articles were obtained. Then following the title and abstract screening, out of 86 articles 40 articles were excluded by the study of their abstracts, as well as 36 articles were chosen by full-text review. Finally, 10 articles found the inclusion criteria. Initially, the most important reasons were examined for the internationalization of higher education, then the internationalization process was considered with regard to the influential factors. The results showed that if the transformation and innovation packages in the internationalization sector are realized, the following achievements will be achieved in the field of medical education: compilation of regional and international medical education and document preparation, compilation of international performance indicators and monitoring model, Designing a Model for Benefiting International Scientific Exchanges, Developing a Flexible Pattern in Educational Curricula to Expand the Attraction of International Students, and International Accreditation of Iranian Medical Universities. This research can provide a new perspective for changing the viewpoints of policy-makers and administrators of the macro-regional universities of medical sciences, especially in the first District to review the packages of transformation and innovation.

Dear Editor The Covid-19 pandemic around the world made professors shocked all over the country who needed pedagogical, content and technological knowledge to overcome it. With the onset of the pandemic, professors who had to take distance education faced a severe dilemma that could lead to chaos for the university's educational leaders. In line with the efforts made throughout the country to solve this problem, the need to design a professor support system at Birjand University of Medical Sciences (BUMS) was also felt. Some efforts which were done in BUMS in this regard include: knowledge support, technical support, forming a support group, designing e-learning courses, development of virtual education in laboratory courses, providing preparation for taking student exams in a completely virtual way and development of a system for quantitative and qualitative evaluation of professors' educational performance during the course. As a conclusion, existing a professor support system is a crucial element for academic leaders, especially in a crisis. Besides, the evaluation of professors’ performance and distinguishing good and poor performance between them is very effective in motivating them and it will lead to more accountability. Obviously, students in this situation also need a student support system so that they could overcome their problems.