Clerkship of Public Health from Students & Educational group's Perspective: A Qualitative Research

Public health graduates are experts who together with other health workforce will be responsible for provision، maintenance and promotion of community health. To do this important job، the students must gain the necessary knowledge and skills principally at clerkship period. This research was done with the purpose of examining the public health clerkship course by knowing about the viewpoints of the related faculty members and students at Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. In this qualitative study، a purposive sampling was used to select the subjects from the population of trainees، graduates and the faculty members of public health. Semi-structured interviews were conducted. The results of the interviews led us to select the next sample، until no fresh ideas were gained. After gathering data from 11 persons، the results of the study were investigated by means of content analysis methodology. By analyzing research data، five key themes were identified including clerkship curriculum، expectations from clerkship، motivation of students for clerkship involvement، training of non-technical skills، and clerkship planning and management. The results of this study demonstrated that lack of integrated planning is the most significant issue causing major setbacks for students'' clerkship. So it is indispensable for officials to improve the quality of clerkship through more incorporated plans.