A study of Medical Student's Viewpoints at Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences onTeaching Clinical Manifestations of Genetic Diseases

Thanks to fast improvement of Human genomics and its profound impact on the diagnosis and management of diseases and because of widely accepted idea that human genetics is central to the bodies of knowledge that are necessary for modern medical schools, evaluation of medical student's viewpoints on genetic's curricula is very important. In this interventional semi-experimental research, the subject of "clinical manifestation of genetic disorders" has been taught to students of medical school of Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences during two semesters in 2012. This subject presented during curriculum of third semester of basic sciences period in 2-hour class. In this subject, common and important signs and symptoms of genetic disorders taught by pictures to increase student's ability in diagnosis of these diseases. Comments from these students about quantity and quality of genetic teaching have been collected by a questionnaire and were compared with comments of medical students before teaching this subject in 2011. After teaching this subject and data gathering, results showed that the number of students who believed thatthey can guess genetic disorders increased, and the number of students who believed that subjects of medical genetic's curricula during their basic sciences period were not enough decreased; moreover,nobody believed that there is no need of teaching this subject. Because medical students need the clinical learning of genetic disorders, teaching of clinical manifestation of genetic disorders”, consequently, seems to be an important way to meet this need.