Assessment of students’ perspectives about master of public health program in medical school of Shiraz University

Introduction: Integration of public health and medicaleducation has been thought to have an important role in medicalstudents’ training. Shiraz University of Medical Sciences hasdeveloped an MD/MPH dual degree educational program forthe talented volunteer students. The aim of this study was toassess the students’ viewpoints about various aspects of ShirazMD/MPH program.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on Shirazundergraduate medical students, who were enrolled in MD/MPHprogram. A self-structured questionnaire in Persian consistingof 4 parts was used; it included demographic factors including16 questions which evaluated the students’ perspective of thegoals, content, skill development, applicability and meeting theirexpectations; 7 questions evaluating the self-reported increase ofknowledge; and 3 multiple choice questions to assess the students’motivations and opinions on the impact of the program on theirfuture career. Descriptive statistics was used for data analysis.Results: All MD/MPH students (89) with a mean age of 21.4±1.34participated in this study. Forty one of the students (46.1%) weremale and 48 (53.9%) female. Overall, 86.1% of them had positiveviews about the goals of the program; also, 83.5%, 81.2% and81.9% of them reported a positive viewpoint about the contents,the applicability and development of specific skills, and meetingtheir expectations, respectively. The students’ most frequentmotivation was “learning how to research systematically”(73%). The majority of the students reported this program to bemoderately to highly effective in increasing their knowledge inthe provided courses.Conclusion: The students had a positive view about almost allof the aspects of the MD/MPH program; this may be indicativeof the program being successful in delivering the goals,increasing the students’ knowledge and skills, and meeting theirexpectations to date. Students’ enthusiasm for the educationalprogram may lead to their motivation for better learning andthus in the program’s success.Keywords: Students; Medical education; Public health; Satisfaction