Examining the Conflict between Medical Education and Patient Rights from the Point of View of Medical Interns of Jundishapour University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz

 Considering the necessity of integrating medical education and the provision of medical services to patients, observing patient rights during medical education is a major challenge. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the conflict between medical education and patient rights from the perspective of interns.

 This descriptive-analytical study was conducted at Jundishapur University, Ahvaz in 2021. The study population consisted of the medical interns who had passed at least six months of their internship period. The researcher developed a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire to conduct a survey among interns and the validity and the reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics tests in SPSS 26 software.

Ethical Considerations: 

All ethical standards were observed during the research process, including ensuring data confidentiality and obtaining the participants’ consent.

 Based on the participants’ answers, medical students’ level of awareness of patient rights charter was significantly lower than average, with the median of 3 (3-2) out of 5 and p-value=0.022. In addition, the level of patient rights observance on the part of interns was significantly lower than the average, with the mean of 2.68±0.89 and p-value=0.00. The lowest score belonged to ensuring the confidentiality of patients’ secrets and their medical records, with the median of 2 (3-1) and p-value=0.001. The level of disruption in students' education due to the necessity of observing patient rights was significantly higher than average, with the median of 3.25 (2.3-75.50) and p-value=0.017. The highest score belonged to patients’ preventing medical interns from doing medical examinations, with the median of 3 (3-4) and p-value=0.03.

 The results of the present study indicated that in the educational process, patient rights are observed less than average, and patients cause disruption in the educational process through preventing interns from doing medical examinations and not cooperating with them.