Background and Objectives: Managing of outpatients in private clinics or health care centers is the most important task of general practitioners. Although more attention is now being paid to ambulatory medicine, its training is not only limited to hospital clinics but also is being thought improperly. The aim of this study was to investigate the attitudes of general practitioners towards ambulatory medicine training. Methods: In this cross sectional study, all of 161 general physicians working in the health care centers in Guilan province were interviewed. Data of sex, age, the university they graduated from, the date they graduated in, whether they work in private clinics and their attitudes towards current ambulatory medicine training were collected by questionnaires. Findings: The results showed that 85 (52.8%) of the subjects had a positive attitude towards ambulatory medicine training but no significant relationship was found between their attitude and the date of their graduating, the university they graduated from, sex and working in private clinics. One hundred and thirty-nine (86.3%) believed that university hospitals should not serve as the only training unit where ambulatory medicine is currently taught there, and health care centers and other clinics can be involved for this purpose. Conclusion: This study showed that most of the general physicians believed that ambulatory medicine training programs need major changes and a shift from bedside teaching to ambulatory medicine is necessary.

Background: In this study, ambulatory care training in Firoozgar hospital was evaluated based on Iranian national standards of undergraduate medical education related to ambulatory education using Baldrige Excellence Model. Moreover, some suggestions were offered to promote education quality in the current condition of ambulatory education in Firoozgar hospital and national standards using the gap analysis method. Methods: This descriptive analytic study was a kind of evaluation research performed using the standard check lists published by the office of undergraduate medical education council. Data were collected through surveying documents, interviewing, and observing the processes based on the Baldrige Excellence Model. After confirming the validity and reliability of the check lists, we evaluated the establishment level of the national standards of undergraduate medical education in the clinics of this hospital in the 4 following domains: educational program, evaluation, training and research resources, and faculty members. Data were analyzed according to the national standards of undergraduate medical education related to ambulatory education and the Baldrige table for scoring. Finally, the quality level of the current condition was determined as very appropriate, appropriate, medium, weak, and very weak. Results: In domains of educational program 62%, in evaluation 48%, in training and research resources 46%, in faculty members 68%, and in overall ratio, 56% of the standards were appropriate. Conclusion: The most successful domains were educational program and faculty members, but evaluation and training and research resources domains had a medium performance. Some domains and indicators were determined as weak and their quality needed to be improved, so it is suggested to provide the necessary facilities and improvements by attending to the quality level of the national standards of ambulatory education.