Journal of Medical Education
Volume:7 Issue: 2, May 2005

procedural skills training is an important part of internal medicine residency and knowing which procedures residents are performing and the quality of their training is a necessary step to ensure sufficient training opportunities.

To obtain the opinions of recent graduates of residency programs of internal medicine in Iran about the quality of training in procedural skills.

A questionnaire was given by hand to the all 187 general internists who had graduated from 22 universities of medical sciences in 2003. Thirty-three ambulatory and inpatient procedures were included in the questionnaire. For each skill the newly graduated internists were asked to answer questions about: the number of procedure they have done during their residency, level of supervision they received during performing the procedure, level of confidence to performing it independently. quality of training and level of importance for a general internist to do it independently. They also were asked to rate the overall quality of procedural skills training and their overall competency to perform these skills. Finally they were asked to answer open questions regarding: Assessment of their procedural skills competency during residency training. Introducing useful references and Materials by residency Programs, the most important problems in their Training and suggestions for improving the quality of procedural skills training.Three postal and an email (for those who have email addresses) reminders were sent for nonresponders.

57/187 (30%) questionnaires were analyzed. More than 50% of respondents said that the quality of teaching procedural skills were not adequate. Meanwhile only 32% of respondents believe that Their competencies in performing procedures are well or more. Statistical difference has been observed between male and female regarding their ideas about competencies to performing procedures (p<0.001).Only 36% of respondents recall that their performance on procedures had been evaluated. which nearly all of them in only 1 procedure. Eleven procedures were indicated by 90% or more of the respondents as those should be learned by all the graduates.

Current residency training in internal medicine does not assure the minimum competency of graduates in most of the more important procedural skills. Residency programs must pay more attention to teaching procedural skills to the residents and assessing their competence.

In the age of information and technology application, troublesome regulations and traditional procedures for medical education may cause serious stresses and be a threat to the general health (GH) of the students of medicine.

To determine the relationship between educational stressors and the general health of residents studying at the Ahwaz Jundishapour University of Medical Sciences (Alums).

In this cross sectional study, the study group was consisted of ll4 cooperative residents (69% of all residents in the hospital), who were being trained in a variety of different specialties. The instruments used were the Educational Stressors Questionnaire, including 45 four-choice items and a General Health Questionnaire. When the questionnaires were completed, the results were analyzed through Pierson Correlation Coefficient using the SPSS.

The residents mentioned their educational stressors as follows: lack of an arranged curriculum, troublesome educational regulations, deficient educational instruments, and inadequate clinical instruction. of all the subjects, 43 ( 37.6%) appeared to have problems in GH,and significantly positive correlation (p<O.OJ) was observed between educational stressors with all of the following parameters: GH, somatic problems, anxiety, and social dysfunction.

As it appeared, educational stressors can be riskfacwrsfor the students' GH, which may be followed by reduced interest, low educational performance, and failure to achieve competency in diagnostic procedures and treatment. The findings suggest basic changes in the current medical instructional techniques.

Nursing student' experiences of their clinical practice provide greater insight to develop an effective clinical teaching strategy in nursing education.

To investigate nurses' experience of their clinical practice.

Focus groups were used to obtain students' opinion about and experiences of their clinical practice. Ninety baccalaureate nursing students at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery) were selected randomly from two hundred students and were arranged in 9 groups often students. Qualitative data analysis approaches were used to code, categorize and analyze focus group data.

Four themes emerged from the focus group data. From the students' point of view, initial clinical anxiety", "theory- practice gap", "clinical supervision", and "professional role" were considered as important factors in clinical experience.

The result of this study showed that nursing students were not satisfied with the clinical component of their education. They experienced anxiety as a result of feeling incompetent and lacking professional nursing skills and knowledge to take care of various patients in the clinical setting.

Teaching anatomy is based on cadaver dissection. Working with cadavers, whether through active dissection or by examination of prosected specimens, constitutes a potential stressor in medical education.Purpose.To reduce the anxiety of the medical students by mentally preparing them before going to the dissection room.

The questionnaires were distributed among 68 medical students. The pre-dissection questionnaire comprised questions related to demographic data and the first encounter with a cadaver. The students were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group was prepared psychologically prior to dissection, but the control group entered the dissection room without any preparation. After the first dissection class, all students were surveyed by the second questionnaire which surveyed physical and cognitive symptoms of anxiety, resulting from exposure to the dissection room at the first visit and six weeks later.

There was a significant difference (p<.05) in the rate of anxiety between experimental and control group in the initial visit. The difference in the rate of anxiety between the first exposure and six weeks later was significant in control group (p<.008), while it was not significant in the experimental group.

The initial preparation could relatively reduce the rate of stress, so that the experimental group experienced less errs) tonal effects during dissection compared to control group.

For several years, educators have criticized the lecture-based approach to teaching and learning. Experts have rightly stressed on acquisition of a number of critical skills rather than focusing on lectures. Purpose. To compare students' pe1jormance after self-education with VCD and manikin, with thei performance after standard BLS training.

In this randomized controlled study, twenty first-year nursing students were divided into two groups randomly, and were provided with basic life support (BLS) instruction either in the traditional format of lecturing or with VCD and manikin without tutor. The students’ Performance was evaluated on a manikin with a checklist including all steps in BLS.

With traditional instruction, students' mean score was 42.2±3.91, while it was 46.3±3.86 with self-education, showing no significant difference.

In nursing students with no previous BLS training, access to VCD and manikin facilitates immediate achievement of educational objectives similar to those of a standard BLS course. Self learning BLS with VCD should be enhanced with a short period of hands-on practice.

Various educational approaches to learning have been proposed. It is, of course, of vital importance to study those that have resulted in effective educational achievements.

To assess the student's attitudes and performance in order to evaluate educational approaches and identify the variables leading to students gaining good marks.

The subjects of the study were medical students at pathophysiology phase. A multiple-choice questionnaire was prepared, the reliability and validity of which were confirmed. A paired-sample T test was used to compare and analyze the student's Basic Sciences Comprehensive Exam scores in each discipline and their average score during the basic sciences course.

With respect to attitudes, the students highly valued the importance of teacher's methodology and mutual respect, as an influential factor in Learning. Furthermore, the majority of the students relied heavily on their textbooks as the main source of information and preferred to study at home, rather than any other places. Most of the students prefer to study in the morning. They believed that mid-term exams, quizzes, and active class participation do not have much effect on learning. However, it was of high importance to them to attend practical claSSfS (labs). With respect to performance, most of the students used lecture notes as the main references, and considered their home as a good place to study and preferred to study in the morning, but have participated in theoretical and practical classes regularly.

Most successful students attributed their success to active class participation, takingmid-term exams, quizzes, and using library. Having analyzed the data, we recommend the authorities to provide more methodology workshops for teachers, sufficient number of textbooks, expanding or increasing the number of the reading rooms with essential equipment.

Teaching assessment is a process of collecting and analyzing data in order to make a judgment on merits and limitations of a teaching program. Thus, assessment would be an important and practical instrument to improve teaching quality.

The main objective of the research is quality improvement of medical education, and specific objectives reset as study of output factors of the educational system, management of educational planning, trainees (students, stagers, interns and residents), faculty members, educational facilities and equipment, educational environments and graduates' satisfaction.

This study was designed as a cross sectional and an analytical descriptive survey. Research and development method as well as survey research have been used in this study.

of all graduated general practitioners, 82% were male and 18% were female. The course average score was between 15 and 16 for 48.1% of the subject graduates. of graduated GPs, 38.1% consider the basic sciences courses as the strength points in their studies, and 60.8% consider internship course as a weak period in their education.

Of all graduated GPs, 81% were satisfied with their education in the School of Medicine.

Acquiring and recalling knowledge can be considered as the starting point of learning; so increasing the acquisition of knowledge and information recall is one the most important goals of education.

To determine the students' information recall in the basic courses of histology, immunology, physiology, biochemistry, head and neck anatomy, and microbiology in dentistry school.

In this descriptive survey, 60 students who had passed their basis courses were studied. The tests were held five semesters following the basic courses, and were like those they had passed previously.

The results revealed that information recall was the highest for the physiology course (z=0.72), while it was the lowest for anatomy (z=0.07). For the histology course, the lowest mean score was achieved by the students entered in the year 1997, and the highest by those entered in 1999. The relationship between the entry year of the students and their information recall is statistically significant (p<0.05).Discussant: The results showed that the teaching basic science courses such as physiology, anatomy, immunology, microbiology, and biochemistry should accompany new strategies in teaching and learning. One of these is the inclusion by the teachers of retrieval cues in any course so as to facilitate learning.