re-attitude of biochemistry laboratory course contents in medical, dentistry and para-medical faculties

dear editor regarding to development of basic science and new methods in biochemistry in recent years, practical biochemistry contents should be optimized (1). therefore, re-attitude biochemistry course contents in medical schools has paralleled worldwide trends a moved from current status is needed (2, 3). as reported by investi­gators many medical schools around the world have reformed their medical curriculum in recent years (2). many authors are convinced that students learn more effectively if the knowledge and skills they acquire are inserted and contextualized in relevant real-life, problem based situations (3). previous studies demonstrated that biochemistry course content is now incorporated into the clinical beneficial, therefore the evolution of students in many countries has occurred (4). in this respect, the purpose of the current study was to evaluate biochemistry laboratory course contents in medical, dentistry and para-medicine faculties from view points of the students. this descriptive study was per­formed in years 2010-2013. questionnaire contained items about appropriateness of biochemistry laboratory contents for students. the first section of questionnaire determines the effectiveness of bioche­mistry laboratory contents and the factors influence on it. the second section indicates the application of biochemistry laboratory contents, and the third parts of questi­onnaire demonstrate the laboratory time spent of biochemistry laboratory course contents. for this purpose three faculties were selected. first, faculty of medicine (50 medical students), second faculty of dentistry (50 dentistry students) and third faculty of para-medicine (50 laboratory science students) were selected. at least 50 students were selected from each faculty and they received a questionnaire. all students were randomly selected to receive a standard questionnaire designed to evaluate their opinions about biochemistry laboratory course contents. the students were asked to rate these questionnaires using a system of 0 through 4, with 0 representing a much less important and 4 representing very important item (0= no relevance, 4= very relevant). all students respond by returning comp­leted question­aires. the data was analyzed by spss version 16.0 software using descriptive statistics. based on the obtained information from 150 question­naire containing items of biochemistry contents, 145 participants respond by returning completed question­naires (response rate: 96.6%). the main finding of this study indicate that approximately 63.25% of the medical, dentistry and para–medicine students suggest that current biochemistry laboratory course contents does not provide their requirements to achieve beneficiate. also, our results showed 62.31% of the medical, dentistry and para–medicine students demonstrated that need reform the biochemistry labor­atory course contents in order to achieve the benefit of this course. also, according to our results, 51.83% of the medical, dentistry and para–medicine students indicated necessary to change laboratory time perfo­rmance. our results indicate that the current status of biochemistry laboratory course contents has been criticized for verity of reasons including: there is growing concern among medical students that current status of biochemistry laboratory course contents have not provide better outcome of learning, also have not provide their practical professional requirements. to diminish these problems we suggested change the current biochemistry laboratory course contents.