Medical Microbiology in Practice: past and current situations in Iran

admitted patients who were referred by physicians not only to diagnose their conditions, but also to educate medicine students as they personally asked for the patient’s history and took the samples, prepared and submitted the results to the patient under the professors’ supervision. All these centers except the Health Department were closed down and no Microbiologist ever objected. How come the students who never took a course in Clinical Microbiology and had no contact with the patients are teaching what they don’t have any knowledge of as a university professor, and how can we expect a physician to interpret the results of the urine cultures? When the curricular are the same as high school, how do we expect the students to participate eagerly in the classes? Is it not retrogression? Can we as Microbiology experts exonerate ourselves where we confirmed these wrongs plans with our silence? What’s done is done and we need to find a solution for future, for those smart and talented university applicants who choose to study Microbiology, unaware of its destiny. A solution needs to be found for them so that they would not join the current unemployed Microbiology graduates. Unfortunately, those who are responsible make new rules which instead of support and amelioration of the curriculum prohibit their employment. This doesn’t only hurt the graduates, but also hurts the society who has paid for their education and cannot benefit from their knowledge and skill. Giving priority to research and publications over education to promote the professors is another plan which has caused decline in Microbiology and other majors as well. Based on these criteria, the professors focus on research and publishing papers which unfortunately has no health or medical significance. Education comes second especially in graduate studies, they forget its importance and what used to be teacher-student education has become studentstudent education. What has one who has graduated *Corresponding author: Bahram Fatolahzadeh Ph.D, Emeritus Professor Address: School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences. E-mail: [email protected] Volume 7 Number 3 (June 2015) 125-126