Admission of medical students from bachelor's degree: why?

In Iran, the proposal for the admission of bachelor students into medicine has been presented before. Ultimately, in 2003, it was resolved in the “Higher Council of Programming” (HCP) that this admission should be exemplarily performed. As this proposal is still under consideration and its positive and negative aspects have not yet been completely examined, we decided to carry out a comprehensive assessment to define the main motivation for such a change in admission requirements and the best procedure for its implementation. To achieve the main objective of the assessment, a policy analysis framework was prepared. The first part of this study was a review of literature concerning admission of medical students. The second part of the study was composed of in-depth interviews with policy makers, focus group discussions with graduates, experts of medical education and medicine and science students. All of the study subjects (except one person) pointed to the positive influence of this proposal on strengthening basic sciences in the course of medicine. Five policy makers (out of 7) insisted that a change in the educational content and the curriculum is mandatory to strengthen basic sciences and relevant research. The experts agreed with this proposal and considered it as an effective step for informed choice of medicine as a major and for improvement in the current position of the basic sciences. Almost every medical student agreed that, at present, the candidate’s personal preference and information is not decisive in choosing a medical career. In order to strengthen basic sciences, most of the science students believed more attention is necessary and more budget must be allocated for research in these fields. On the whole, the advantages of this proposal can be divided into three groups: strengthening basic sciences, a more informed choice of medicine as a major, and finally the possibility of admitting more mature candidates. Although the main motivation of the universities requiring a bachelor’s degree as admission criteria is for the students to make an informed choice, strengthening the basic sciences seems a more important goal for the country.