Explanation and clarification of the concept of value in medical education

Developing the education of medical sciences is one of the main objectives of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education. The first step toward creating value-based educational programs in the country is to clarify the concept of value in medical education, which is addressed in this study.
Through critical interpretive synthesis, document analysis was performed to clarify the concept of value in medical education; then, the related literature on ‘value’ was investigated. From among 800 articles, 70 articles were selected by purposive sampling. A well-reasoned synthesis of the contradictory findings in different studies was conducted. As the next step, critical analysis on the documents was carried out so that the concept of value along with new concepts and their relationships, the philosophy, and the place of values in medical education of Iran were recreated. All the ethical issues were observed. Moreover, the authors did not report conflict of interest.
Values are created as a system within each individual, forming the basis of judgment and decision making. Values shape attitudes and guide our behavior. Furthermore, beliefs affect our scientific approaches. Scientific evidence that has been provided is not devoid of the scholars and researchers’ values. In our Islamic society, the basic assumptions shape our beliefs and values; then, these values determine our direction and behavioral patterns so that we do not get out of the circle of morality.
In our country, in many areas including medical education, those programs that guarantee the achievement of values are needed. To foster the values in this field, the first step is paving the way for understanding and internalization of values along with the development of teaching procedures to gain value-based experiences.