Parasites and parasitic diseases have been prevalent in Iran according to Iranian ancient scholars and physicians’ inscriptions dating back to 865–1496. Some protozoan diseases such as malaria and cutaneous leishmaniasis have been introduced by clinical manifestations and helminthic infections by size and morphology of the worms. Scientific studies of Parasitology started in Iran from 1833, first by foreign physicians and continued from 1909 by Iranian researchers. The pioneer medical parasitologists of Iran were Dr N. Ansari and Dr. Sh. Mofidi who established the Department of Medical Parasitology in the School of Medicine, University of Tehran, 1939. Afterward, a considerable number of researchers and professors of parasitology have been active in training and research works in the fields of medical parasitology throughout the entire nation. At present, some significant parasitic diseases such as bilharsiasis and dracunculiasis are more or less eradicated and malaria is in the elimination phase. The prevalence of most helminthic infections has considerably decreased. Most of the departments of medical Parasitology in Iran are active in training MD, MSPH and PhD students. The Iranian Society of Parasitology established in 1994 is active with many eligible members and its creditable publication, the Iranian Journal of Parasitology, published seasonally since 2006. From 1833, when the scientific studies of Parasitology have started in Iran up to 2013, many researchers have been done on various fields of medical Parasitology and parasitic diseases in Iran and 2517 papers in English and 1890 papers in Persian have been published in national and international scientific journals. In addition, more than 420 books related in the field of medical parasitology field have been published in Persian language.

Background: Training of expert human resources is one of the main and basic objectives of developed countries. One of the important challenges for attainment of this objective is shortage in funding and financial resources. This is while medical branches, due to being specialized and requiring vast practical courses, need spending considerable financial costs for training competent students. Objectives: The present study aimed to estimate the costs of training medical parasitology and mycology students at Kerman University of Medical Sciences. Methods: This was a descriptive research. The data collection tool was a form designed by researchers using various resources. Educational and non-educational costs of the academic year of 2017-2018, with a top-down approach, were analysed to estimate the costs of training and educating post-graduate students. Analyses were made using Microsoft Excel 2013 software. Results: The costs of educating master students in parasitology, Ph. D. students in parasitology, and master students in mycology in the academic year of 2017-2018 were 11, 144, 18, 365, and 7, 821 USD, respectively. Forty-five percent of the total of educational costs was allocated to training Ph. D. students in parasitology alone, and a major share (81%) of these costs had been paid to human resources. Conclusion: Our findings indicated that the financial costs of training and educating students in the parasitology and mycology fields are high, needing the prompt attention of the policymakers of the national medical education system.

Background: Parasitology is a course filled with many complicated terminologies. In this study, a guide was designed to facilitate the learning of parasitology. More precisely, an annual educational calendar of medical parasitology was designed based on the weeks of education and its effectiveness was assessed in university students of medical sciences. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study included 174 students who were randomly divided into two intervention and control groups. At the baseline, the students were tested with a questionnaire at the beginning of each teaching session and the end of the intervention. In addition, another questionnaire was used to compare the attitude and satisfaction of students in two groups. Finally, the scores of the students were entered in SPSS 16 for analysis. Results: The results of parametric tests showed that the mean scores of laboratory and medical students during several tests in different sessions were significantly different in the two groups. Conclusion: The educational calendar is a new method in medical education, especially in the field of medical parasitology. This calendar as an educational supplement, emphasizes on students’ active learning and contributes to improving the quality of teaching the parasitology course in addition to meeting their educational needs.

The aim of this study was to compare three approaches of teaching medical a parasitological course. This cross-sectional study was carried out on 94 medical and pharmacy students. Lecture-based approach, problem-based approach and combined approach were applied to teach the parasitology course. Kappa and SPSS16 were used to analyze the obtained data. 82.9% of students were interested in lecture-based learning, 64.9% were attracted by problem-based learning and 91.5% opted for combined approach. 96.8% and 62.8% of the students preferred final examination be administered as multiple choice questions and case history tests, respectively. 97.9% of them indicated that the lecturer’s behavior affected the learning outcome and 67% did not believe in the impact of papers on teaching and learning parasitology course. Further, students were interested in using logbooks in practical laboratory (P<0.005). Combined approach should be initiated and directed toward harmonization of the curriculum to enhance learning.

Background: The aim of this study was to survey the Iranian Parasitology researchers‟ performance, and analyse and visualize the scientific outputs of their co-authorship network.Methods: This study was conducted using scientometric method and social network analysis (SNA). The data extracted from the Web of Science (WoS) databases in July 10th 2014. Totally, 1048documents of all types in research area of Parasitology during 1972-2013 by Iranian researches retrieved. The co-authorship map was drawn utilizing NETDRAW, Coauthor.exe, and UCINET softwares and was analysed based on SNA measures.Results: The researchers‟ co-authorship network consisted of 78 authors and its density degree is 0.57. "Mohebali" ranked top in all of centrality measures.The most of the publications were related to 2012, "Mohebali" with about 9% of all documents was the Iranian most prolific author in Parasitology field. The Iranian researches have published mostly (266 documents) in "Iranian Journal of Parasitology", and the most of the documents belong to "Tropical Medicine" subject field. The most of Iranian researchers‟ scientific cooperation was performed with England and United States.Conclusion: Bringing forth density degree (is 0.57) showed that this network has an almost medium density. Indeed, the authors have had relations in moderate level with each other in the network. The findings of this study can be identified aspects of scientific collaboration, and help policy makers of Parasitology field research.