Comparison of Medical Surgical Nursing Master’s Curriculum Degree Program in Iran and India: A Comparative Study

The mission of comparative study is to find out the differences and similarities of various educational systems and to identify the reasons for the success and failure of the systems and to use resulting experiences in the advancement and development of the educational system. Nursing education has a special place in the education of higher medical sciences and rapid expansion in recent decades. This study aimed to compare the educational program of the medical surgical nursing master's degree in Iran and Mahatma Gandhi University in India.

This descriptive-comparative study was carried out in 2022 using the four-step Bereday’s method (description, interpretation, juxtaposition and comparison). In this study, the Master of Science educational programs in medical surgical nursing available on the website of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Iran and the faculty of nursing in Mahatma Gandhi University, India were compared.

The findings showed that in Iran's educational program, attention to moral, human dignity, legal, Islamic and religious aspects is much more prominent. In the Mahatma Gandhi University, having work experience is a condition for admission to this field, and there is also a clear difference between the total practical and clinical hours (except for the thesis) between these two educational programs, which is much more in Mahatma Gandhi's educational program.

The findings of this study can help planners to improve the quality level of this nursing’s field, considering the importance and scope of this nursing trend. It seems necessary for the educational planners to pay more attention to the practical and clinical aspects of the master's degree program in medical surgical nursing in Iran, so that improve one of the basic defects of this field, which is the gap between theory and practice.