Research and Development in Medical Education
Volume:8 Issue: 1, 2019

Health systems around the world have their own unique challenges. Today, competence in clinical leadership is often seen as more important than clinical competence. Given the important role of physicians in health systems, how do they acquire clinical leadership competencies? In this research, valid scientific articles were reviewed for insight. In this research, databases including Science Direct, ProQuest, PubMed, SCOPUS, and Emerald, as well as Google Scholar, the Scientific Information Database, and Magiran for Iranian articles were searched for valid evidence-based English and Persian articles published between 2010 and 2018 using combination of keywords such as "physician," "leadership," and "competency" singly and in combination with the terms "AND" and "OR" as research strategy. Studies that focused on "physicians leadership competency" were selected. Search results were limited to the years 2010-2018. After reviewing the papers, 18 relevant articles were selected. In the first phase, 350 articles were selected and after careful examination, 18 papers were approved at the final stage. It was found that education and leadership development courses are the most important factor for enhancing managerial competencies for physicians. It should be noted that the researchers found that in Iran research on competence in clinical leadership has also been less relevant than others. It is imperative that managers and planners of medical curricula design courses to develop management skills for physicians. In the post-graduate period, for physicians’ continuing education, courses that address applied management and leadership should be identified and included in the continuing education curricula to address the real needs of the country’s health systems. Leadership development programs can also be useful as projects to be modeled with the help of the world’s top medical universities.

Faculty member’s attitude is one of the most important factors in the success of electronic learning. Understanding the attitudes of teachers toward e-learning can lead to an appropriate learning environment. This study aimed at examining the attitude of faculty members towards e-Learning at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in 2016. In this cross-sectional study, 334 faculty members from the faculties of university were selected by random stratified sampling method and their attitude was assessed by questionnaires. Data was analyzed using SPSS 20. The mean age of subjects was 49.09 (SD = 7.41). Of the total study population, 57.75% (190) were males and 42.25% (139) were females. The highest mean score among the dimensions of attitude assessment was related to sense of enjoyment with a mean of 29.26 (SD = 0.71) and the lowest mean related to self-efficacy (mean = 5.96) (SD = 0.82). The results of this study show that the attitude of faculty members is positive towards using appropriate e-learning. However, more studies are needed to assess the obstacles and approaches to improve the attitude of faculty members towards e-learning.

Conventional pedagogies for case-based learning are designed with the intention of helping the student appreciate the relevance of content they learn and kindle their curiosity. However, these pedagogies embody certain shortcomings which inhibit them from reaching the intended objectives. The main aim of our initiative is to improve traditional case-based learning using the principles of clinical reasoning. A priori, two sessions were conducted in which two vignettes were administered to first-year medical students. We obtained the perceived acceptance which was equivalent to Kirkpatrick level 1 learning outcomes. Overall outcomes were highly positive in terms of acceptability, fostering curiosity, increasing the relevance of learned content, and helping students learn to think in a logical way. With the increasing need for incorporating clinical reasoning skills in medical education, it is imperative that these skills are taught beginning with the preclinical years of medical education.

Task-based curriculum is a new educational approach which is accepted in many medical universities as a suitable teaching and learning method. It is a comprehensive system across various disciplines that emphasizes one set of tasks. The objective of this study was to consider educational and nursing professionals’ perspectives on task-based curriculum components in the nursing field. This qualitative study follows a phenomenological approach and was conducted in the summer of 2018 with 12 educational experts and nursing professionals through purposeful sampling up to saturation of the data; confidentiality of information was observed; and participants could leave the study at any time. The method used for data collection was conducted through in-depth and semi-structured interviews. Data was analyzed using the seven-levels Colaizzi method. After analyzing and integrating the main components, six main components were identified and 32 subcomponents were extracted. The main components encompass taskbased curriculum features, effective factors of task-based curriculum in designing task-based curriculum, procedures of task-based curriculum, and gaps in procedure of task-based curriculum, required skills in curriculum, and effective forces on designing of curriculum Results showed that the task-based curriculum approach is an active educational method that requires active student participation. It emphasizes the creation of knowledge by the individual. Individuals learn knowledge and gain skills in clinical settings. With this approach, theory and clinical performance are measured together.

Accountability brings transparency and commitment to improve adherence to the mission and upgrade the current system. The medical education system bears a responsibility to be accountable towards the community, which involves examining the fulfillment of the university’s goals in this area. Therefore, this study has reviewed the fulfillment of accountable indicators in the study group. This descriptive study was carried out in the surgery department at the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in the teaching hospitals of Imam Reza and Sina. it was done based on accountable education measurement tool that included 10 areas, 25 criteria and their associated markers. The data collection method was based on interviews, observation and review of documents. The average performance (mean 38.6%) of the surgery department across the ten areas of social accountability in education was at a moderate level. There was no performance recorded in the 2nd and 9th areas and the performance in the 8th and 10th areas was poor. Areas 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7 had a moderate performance and the Area 3 had a fairly good performance average. The performance of the study group is based on some factors such as the relationship between the Medical Education Development Center and the Medical Education Department and their knowledge of accountability principles and criteria, and the knowledge and application of teaching, assessment, and evaluation methods as well as the knowledge of accountable education.

In order to develop competent health care professionals and to help medical students to acquire clinical reasoning, critical thinking and problem-solving skills, it was decided to initiate problem-oriented learning (POL) sessions as a part of implementation of integrated learning in the second year of undergraduate education of medical students in a medical college. A group of 150 students in the second year of their undergraduate education was divided into 10 sets of 15 members each. For each weekly POL session, one lead department was identified and from that department, one faculty member was assigned for each of the 10 groups for clarity and guidance. Four to five departments in all were involved in these POL sessions based on the topic and were instructed to frame their objectives and share these with the lead department at least one week prior to each session to develop appropriate problems for discussion. Initial results failed to meet the desired objectives. The entire exercise was restructured and attention was given to the areas where weaknesses were identified. Faculty members were provided with additional information about POL and the number of sessions was reduced to two per month. Faculty members were instructed to be discussion facilitators rather than to become involved in didactic teaching. Subsequently, a significant improvement was observed both in terms of outcomes and student participation. It is relatively easy to start a new mode of teaching-learning; however, outcomes improve when efforts are planned systematically and implementation is revisited after challenges and gaps are identified.

Shyness is a main cause of poor results in the educational environment. The present study aimed at studying relationship between alexithymia (the inability to recognize or describe one’s own emotions) and shyness in nursing students, with mediating roles of loneliness and social identity. This descriptive-correlational study was based on structural equation modeling, specific regression equations, and a statistical population of 658 nursing students at Ahvaz University of Medical Sciences in 2018. A sample of 331 students was selected. To collect the data, Toronto’s Alexithymia Scale, Russell, Peplau and Cutrona’s Loneliness Scale, Safarinia’s Social Identity Questionnaire and Briggs, Cheek and Buss’ Shyness Scale were used. The findings from regression analysis showed that there was a direct effect between alexithymia and shyness and an indirect effect between alexithymia and shyness with mediating factors of loneliness and social identity (P<0.01). In total, alexithymia, feelings of loneliness, and perception of social identity had a predictive power of 0.51% of shyness. The results of this study show the effect of alexithymia and the role of moderating influences on feelings of loneliness and social identity perceptions and shyness among nursing students, which can provide useful practical applications to advisers and trainers in order to improve the psychological state of nursing students.

Today, professionalism is considered a competitive advantage and its observance at a university is the guarantee of the teaching -learning process in education. The purpose of this study was to design an educational model of professionalism for faculty members at the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. This grounded theory study was conducted using a qualitative approach in 2018. The participants of this study were 16 faculty members of the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. Sampling was purposeful and continued until data saturation. Data was collected by semistructured interviews. Two methods of reviewing participants and reviewing non-participant experts were used in the data validation. Interview data were analyzed by Strauss and Corbin method. The central core theme of the present study is that ethics in non-clinical education can be categorized in four components: personal characteristics, social interactions, teaching skills, and professional characteristics. Based on casual, contextual and interaction conditions, some strategies were developed and the final model is based on this information. Considering the positive implications of professionalism, increasing productivity in the university, the educational system dynamism, promoting professionalism and developing strategic plans, authorities must focus more on academic and social infrastructure to achieve educational quality and social trust.

Drawing can be a useful tool to elicit student thinking and is a widely-used method for communicating scientific ideas. The task of drawing requires students to identify and recall necessary pieces of information they assimilated over a period of time and construct a mental model. However, millennial generation learners, owing to their immersion in 3D technologies, lack interest in practicing and learning from diagrams. This impairs learning and retention of visually-oriented subjects. In this perspective, we reflect on the cognitive and metacognitive processes associated with drawing to emphasize the important role of drawing in present day anatomy education.