Journal of Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences
Year:2011 | Volume:10 | Issue:SUPPLEMENT|Papers Count:13

Background and Objectives: Reviewing the scientific literature concerning the analysis of different aspects of PhD education systems can help improve the knowledge promotion system in Iran. Different PhD training models around the world and their advantages and disadvantages have been investigated. The study explored the published papers using a systematic approach. Promotion plans in other countries were also investigated.Materials and Methods: Main databanks between 1998 and 2008 were systematically reviewed using ten standard and sensitive keywords. In the next step, the contents of eligible papers were analyzed and classified.Results: Thirty-two eligible papers were included in the final analysis. The main themes in these papers were about the student admission, supervision of PhD students and evaluation methods. In addition, these papers discussed how universities might improve the links between their PhD students and the community and industry. Moreover, we found information about the variety of training method between different countries, the trends in the number of PhD students and their age, sex and ethnic compositions. Major challenges for Ph.D education include: discipline, law and order in Ph.D programs, quality of supervision, completion time, drop-out rates, increasing number of students, preparation for employment, labor market qualifications and skills, cost of education, inter- university student exchange programs and foreign students admission.Conclusion: Based on our findings, we need to pay more attention to diversify PhD training schemes particularly research-based PhD and professional PhD and to provide PhD education systems appropriate to the present and future needs of our society.

Background and Objectives: Professional ability of physicians in urban and rural health centers plays a critical role in success of national health services programs. The present study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of general practitioners' (GPs) participation on promoting the quality of education curriculum of medical students in their health internship courses.Materials and Methods: In this interventional study, two groups of (n=30 for each group) health internship medical students and all GPs working at University Health Centers were included (n=12). GPs were trained in a training workshop for reviewing the health internship program. Data were collected during and at the end of the workshop from the two groups; internship medical students educated in the centers with and without trained GPs who participated in the study, using the study instrument. Health internship score, students’ satisfaction score and the score of a scientific exam were compared between the two groups. Data were analysed by t-test and Mann-Whitney U test and X2 test.Results: There was no significant difference between the age and gender of students in the two groups. Educational level of the students in the two groups was also similar. Mean score of health internship in students educated in health centers with trained GPs and health centers without trained GPs were 18±0.98 and 17.3±1.2 (out of 20), respectively. Mean score of the scientific exam for these two groups of students were 2.9±1.1 and 2.1±0.78 (out of 5), respectively. The results showed a significant difference between these mean scores in the two groups (p<0.01).Conclusion: The two groups of students were matched based on their age, gender and educational level sufficiently. Our findings showed that GPs participation in educational program of medical students in their health internship not only improves both students scientific knowledge and their health internship score but also increases students satisfaction from their educational program of health internship.

Background and Objectives: The first basic step in planning any quality improvement programs is to determine the educational services quality followed by presenting effective strategies to overcome or reduce the possible gaps in access to standard quality education. This study was conducted to aim of evaluation of the students' viewpoints regarding educational services quality presented by Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences.Materials and Methods: This descriptive - sectional study was performed on 310 students studying at the Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences in the second semester of academic year 2008-2009. The participants were rendomly seclected and the data was collected using a valid and reliable questionaire based on the SERVQUAL (science quality) insterument. The results were then analyzed, in relation to the five service quality (SERVQUAL) dimensions (tangibles; reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy), by t -test and ANOVA using SPSS softwere. The average service quality gap scores was defined as the difference between the average perceptions score and expectations score.Results: Results indicated that the average service quality gap was -1.52±0.9. The maximum quality gap scores was observed in the faculties of medicine and dentistery respectively (-1.88±0.8, -2.01±0.9) and the minimum value was found in the faculty of para medicine (-1.2±0.7). The results also showed that there are significant differences among the gap scores of five dimensions. The empathy and reliability dimensions had the minimum gap scores (-1.40±1) and the tangibles dimension had the maximum value (-1.8±1.2).Conclusion: Based on our results, from viewpoints of students, the educational services quality is under the acceptable level. For changing this situation, many actions and measures should be taken including; offering training courses or workshops for academic members and staff, modifying the educational technology, and refurbishing the educational building and campus.

Background and Objectives: The first series of long distant MPH (Master of Public Health) education in Iran started at Kerman University of Medical sciences by enrolling 30 students from February 2008. It seemed necessary to document the experience of this program, in order to use the results for tailoring and establishing similar long distance programs in other medical fields and universities.Material and Methods: This study was a descriptive phenomenology qualitative study. All academics involved in the long distance education program were interviewed. Open and semi-structured questions were asked. The collected data was then coded and categorized to enable further analysis by using theme analysis. The final text was given to two participants for reading and commenting on the validity.Results: Two main themes emerged from the data. The first was the concern of most of the academics about the quality of education; for example the academics thought the student have not learned as well as the face to face education students, their questions remain unanswered, problem solving is difficult and they procrastinate their reading material.The second theme was the problems of the academics themselves, such as the difficulty of teaching of the comprehensive and practical materials, the fact that preparing materials and communication through telephone and email is more time consuming and lack of a face-to-face contact hinders academics from getting instant feedback from their students. They also thought that academics should have been trained and that the infrastructure of long distance education, such as video-conferencing should have been established in advanced.Conclsion: Long distant education is still taking its first steps in Iran and in order to establish successful courses, appropriate planning is essential. Preparing the proper infra-structure, proper familiarization for students and academics before launching the course and continuous research and education-quality evaluation seems necessary.

Background and Objectives: Situation assessment during the implementation process will create favorable feedback that makes clear to what extent the implemented program has been successful in achieving the predetermined goals. Therefore, the internal evaluation of Social Medicine Department of Rafsanjan School of Medicine was aimed at understanding the strengths and weaknesses points in order to improve weaknesses and reinforce strengths.Materials and Methods: In this descriptive study, different parameters were evaluated including; relevant criteria for the head and middle manager of the group, technical facilities and equipments, library facilities and services, analysis of students' comments regarding educational curriculum i.e. theory, apprenticeship and internship cpourses, faculty members' structure and their curriculum vita (CV) and finally, the group colleagues' comments about the faculty members' teaching quality. Markers associated with each criterion were determined in a checklist form and compared using the Gorman table.Results: Evaluation results showed that the mean scores for the aforementioned parameters were 4.89, 4.46, 5, 2.77, 4.79, 4.56, 4.15, 2.53 and 2.30 respectively. The overall rank for internal evaluation of the group, 3.83, was considered good based on the Gorman ranking criterion.Conclusion: According to the results, the group rank was strong and very strong for most of the parameters. However, the group rank was satisfactory and borderline for the parameters of library facilities and services and students' comments regarding educational curriculum in apprenticeship and internship cpourses.The findings of this study put a higher responsibility on the Social Medicine Department to have a complete revision of the educational curriculum in apprenticeship and internship courses for medical students and to seek to eliminate weaknesses and enhance strengths points and take the appropriate action to equip and support the library.

Background and Objectives Today, the promotion of critical thinking skills should be considered as an expected outcome of BSc nursing curriculum. This study was designed to compare the critical thinking skills of nursing students of Semnan University of Medical Sciences with Tehran University of Medical Sciences.Materials and Methods: In this comparative and descriptive study, 70 and 120 of Y1 and Y4 BSc nursing students of Semnan and Tehran Universities (Tehran, Iran and Shaheed Beheshti Universities) were selected respectively using stratified random sampling. The California Critical Thinking Skill Test, form B (CCTST:FB) composed of 34 multiple choice questions was used to assess the critical thinking skills in five areas of analysis, evaluation, inference, inductive and deductive reasoning. Data was then analyzed using t-test and ANOVA.Results: The results showed that the mean and standard deviation of critical thinking scores for semnan and Tehran bachelor students were 12.34±2.45 and 10.4±2.75, respectively which were significantly different (t=1.95, p=0.002). There was a significant difference between critical thinking skills scores of nursing students in different years of study in Semnan (F3, 0=4.28, p=0.000), But in Tehran Universities, there was only a significant difference between critical thinking skills scores of Y1 and Y4 students (t=-2.77, p=0.007).Conclusion: Bachelor nursing students of Semnan University had a higher score of critical thinking skills compared to their counterparts in Tehran. There was also a significant difference between junior and senior nursing students. Results from this study and of similar works suggest that more attention should be paid to the process of education based on nurturing of critical thinking skills.

Background and Objectives: Teaching of repair versus replacement of defective direct composite restorations (DCRs) is a clinical concern that has not been studied among Iranian restorative dentistry specialists. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the aspects of restorative dentistry specialists regarding the teaching of repair as a conservative alternative to the replacement of DCRs in Iranian dental schools.Materials and Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, a 14-item questionnaire was mailed to 126 restorative dentistry specialists participating at in18 dental schools. Most of the questions were about implementation of the repair versus replacement, success rate of repair, the teaching repair and replacement of defective DCRs and the longevity of repaired restorations. Data was reported by descriptive statistic.Results: The response rate was 86 (68.3%); the majority (90.7%) of the specialists was implemented repair of defective composite resin, but only 9.3% of them were preferred replacement. Sixty-one (70.9%) of the respondents reported that they taught undergraduate students repair techniques as an alternative to replacing defective DCRs; 51 (59.3%) and 42 (48.8%) of them were teaching the practical and theoretical of repair techniques at the clinical level; the reasons for these approaches in order of frequency were tooth structure preservation, reduction of potentially harmful effects on the pulp, reduction in treatment time and cost.Conclusions: Based on the results, the repair of defective DCRs syllabus has been extensively taught in the Iranian dental schools. Most of the restorative dentistry specialists considered the repair of these restorations as a definitive measure and reported that the repaired DCRs have a longevity of 4.5 years.

Background and Objectives: Students theses are very important and taking it into accont is an essential consideration for developing future research studies. Thus, this study was designed to investigate theses structure and observance of basic scientific writing guidelines by MSc Nutrsing students of Kerman University of Medical Sciences.Materials and Methods: In this descriptive study, 75 MSc Nursing theses were chosen randomly and analysed for different aspects including general characteristic, content and structure. Data gathering instrument was a questionnaire designed based on the critical appraisal. Data was then analysed by SPSS software.Results: Total score in the 16 research methodology indices was 84.92±10.37 out of 114 which was acceptable based on the likert scale. Most accordance (86.7%) was related to the correct writing and least accordance was related to abstract (29.3%). Theses written in recent years and supervised by two advisors had a better quality.Conclusion: Findings of this study showed an improving trend in the writing of theses. For promotion of quality of thesis writing, the educational programs and courses should be updated and more workshops focused on research methodolosy are warranted.

Background and Objectives: Life skills include group of skills and abilities which help individuals resolve issues in their lives and control conflicts in interpersonal relationship. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the method of life skill training on subjective well_being of female high school students.Materials and Methods: This semi-experimental study was conducted as a post test, and two pre-test surveys (at one-month follow up). Statistical population comprised all female high-school students of Rafsanjan city in 2010 and the sampling method was multi-stage cluster sampling. Among 148 students who filled the questionnaires, 30 students who had the least subjective well_being score were randomly separated into two groups of 15 students (here called intervention and control groups). The data was gathered by revised subjective well_being Questionnaire prepared by Molavi in 2008 which involves 39 expressions, from 1 to 5 Likert scale, and also by the researcher’s own questionnaire containing demographic information. The intervention group took part in 8 of 90-minute training sessions and the pre test and one-month follow up scores were then analsyed by co-variance test using SPSS software.Results: The pre- test data from the two groups showed no significant difference, however, the post test and one-month follow up scores were significantly higher than control group (p=0.0001).This difference was also observed in follow up survey (p=0.0001)Conclusion: The results of this study show that life skills training courses can improve the feeling of happiness and life satisfaction.

Background and Objectives: Unavoidable stresses are quite often found in human life and at their tolerable levels are to beneficial to psychological activities. However, an inability to tolerate or control unusual and extreme levels of stress may appear as a psychological and/or physiological disorder. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence effect of planned education programs on alleviation of stress in male high school students.Material and methods: This interventional study was conducted on 70 male high school students living in dormitory in Servabad town in 2008. The data collecting tool was a disigned questionnaire (korton test) which distributed among the participants. Within two weeks, four training sessions as lecture or interactive meeting were conducted for all students. Data was then analysed by chi-squre, t-test, and Mann-whitney test using SPSS software.Results: Before training courses, the stress rates due to environment or personality disorder were 68.8% and 71.4% respectively. After training courses, these values lowered to 37.1% and 44.3% respectively. Statistical analysis showed that there was a significant relationship between stress due to environment and personality disorders and also with the social class of students.Conclusion: The results of this study showed that requler training courses can reduce significantly the rate of stress in students.