Qualitative evaluation of general practitioner training program as viewed by graduates from Shiraz, Fasa and Jahrom Medical Universities

of higher education into focus in the past few years. They havetried to improve the quality of their own higher education. Thestudies show that Iranian Universities are not at an accepted levelin terms of quality. They have encountered several problemswhich have diminished their quality level. This study aimed atassessing the quality of medical education program as viewed bygeneral practitioners graduated from Shiraz, Fasa and JahromMedical Universities.Methods: This is a cross-sectional study. 215 subjects wereselected based on a census of all the general practitionersgraduated from Shiraz, Fasa and Jahrom Universities during 2011-2013. The questionnaire used for collecting the data was that ofthe Association of Graduates from American Medical Colleges.The collected data were then analyzed using SPSS 14 throughwhich such descriptive and bivariate statistics as percentage,means, Standard Deviation and ANOVA were used. The level ofsignificance was set to 0.05.Results: The questionnaire return rate was 97%. As to thegraduates’ preclinical experiences, five indices were studiedwhich were assessed as “average” in graduates’ views. However,with respect to their clinical experiences five indices wereequally studied, among which such indices as “Communication”were evaluated as “desirable” in view of the graduates from thevery three universities. On the contrary, the quality of clinicalexperiences and technological skills was evaluated as “almostweak”; furthermore, the integration of basic science with requiredclinical experience was also considered “weak”.Conclusion: It seems essential to set up an annual assessmentof general practitioner education program and a review of themedical education program in Iran based on the global medicaladvancement and international standards.Keywords: Quality; Evaluation; General practitioners; Medical students