The Defects of Infectious Diseases Residency Curriculum in Iran

To train specialists in infectious diseases, a comprehensive and responsive curriculum to community needs is essential. We checked the infectious diseases residency curriculum in Iran and comprised it with same curricula of other country with the aim of identifying the defects. This descriptive-comparative study had three steps. First, researchers studied the infectious diseases curriculum of Iran. Then, the same curricula in some other countries were extracted and finally, information such as mission and goals, type and duration of postgraduate training and rotations, teaching strategies and approaches, and amount of elective courses were compared within these curricula. In Iran, the curricula of postgraduate courses for all medical universities are formulated by Ministry of Health. There are many similarities between infectious diseases residency curriculum of Iranian universities and other countries; but in many countries, it is offered in fellowship courses. In Iranian domestic curriculum, learning objectives, themes and subthemes, assessment methods blueprint, and rotational period details are not mentioned. However, other issues such as the epidemiology and health issues are considered in the short-term courses. Based on domestic curriculum, resident cannot be selectively trained in any course, or procedure. Most of the instructional content of curriculum was organized by topics. Policy makers in Iranian Ministry of Health should attend internal consistency of infectious diseases residency curriculum considering other trainee levels curricula and utilize exclusive subject-based models in curriculum formulation to promote education in this field.