A survey on student`s satisfaction of clinical education and its related factor

Introduction. Clinical education is a process by which students obtain clinical experiences and ideas on the patients' bedside to be prepared for patient’s problem solving. Continuous evaluation and identification of strengths and weaknesses of this process by different methods is necessary for development of an effective medical education and assessment of student satisfaction (SS) is one of the best methods. Thus for determining the SS of clinical education in a group of medical students we designed this study. Methods. We designed a cross section descriptive analytic study in 2000 and identified SS with clinical education in medical students of Tehran University of medical sciences. A modified questionnaire like job satisfaction questionnaire assessed students' satisfaction. Clinical education was classified to outpatient, bedside and theoretical teaching. Results. Overall satisfaction with clinical education was 48.8% including outpatient and bedside teaching (52%) and theoretical education (70.8%). Overall satisfaction with clinical experience was associated with smaller number of students, greater variety of patients with common diseases and use of institutionalized oriented methods for education. We did not find any relationship between SS with the following factors: demographic characteristics, physical structure of classes, duration of sessions and clinical instructor skills. Conclusion. On the basis of present study we conclude that clinical education should be reevaluated in this university with specific attention to students' number, variety of diseases and educational methods considered for each cession in clinical education.