Continuing medical education based on the needs of society

Background. One of the main reasons of inefficiency in traditional medical education is the application of diseaseoriented educational system in continuing medical education, instead of a symptom-oriente approach.Purpose. To determine the most common and important symptoms and complaints among Iranian nation according to the viewpoints of general parishioners.Method. In this descriptive cross-sectional study, a self-administered questionnaire consisting of demographic data and 153 scaled-questions about body systems and organs, which were designed based on Likert style. A pilot studywas performed. Of 26217 GPs all over the country, 5000 physicians were selected by stage randomized sampling method. Of this number, 1714 GPs answered and returned the questionnaire.Result. Demographic data, the relative number of male and female GPs, and relative and absolute distribution of GPs were described and analyzed using Chi square test. The difference of GPs’ opinions about the most common symptoms were analyzed according to the physicians’ gender, duration of practice and their province of practice;there were significant differences found in some systems.Conclusion. It seems that continuing medical education programs should be planned based on a modern evidencebased approach and according to the society’s and practicing physicians’ needs in order to achieve a communityoriented medical education system.