A comparison of academic staff and students opinions toward medical education process

Introduction. The capability of the academic staff in teaching has a significant relationship with their awareness of educational process and curriculum. Taking the necessity of the curriculum and precise implementation of its parts as a system into account, reveals the academic staff’s thinking system and educational process. Education experts believe that the university student is the center of education. The instructors must arrange educational condition which involves the students in educational activities. In such a situation the continuance of thinking process is made possible and the students will have a feeling of efficiency. This present article aims at comparing the faculty and interns’ opinion about curriculum of medical education by surveying the viewpoints of the faculty and students who are involved in medical education. Methods. The subjects of this analytical descriptive study include the academic staff and interns of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. Initially a questionnaire about educational process was prepared, containing (40) close, and one open ended questions about integration. To increase the reliability and validity of the questionnaire, it was piloted first. They were distributed and then collected by the researchers. Results. The findings of this study revealed that there was a significant difference between the attitudes of these two groups in some aspects of educational planning, objectives and clinical period. In some aspects, they had similar attitudes. Conclusion. Planning the objectives based on the community’s needs is the essential part of each educational program. We believe that bridging the gap between basic and clinical sciences, changing attitudes (faculty, student), developing skill in curriculum planning, teaching based on active methods and revision 0f the present curriculum are necessary.