Biotechnology Workshop, a Model for Curriculum Enrichment: Investigating Medical Students' Viewpoints

Introduction: In recent years, one of the ways for enriching medical students' curriculum and training them as physician-scientists has been acquainting them with other sciences such as biotechnology. In this study conducted as a workshop for students' acquaintance with biotechnology, medical students' viewpoints towards its advantages was investigated. Methods: A seven day biotechnology workshop was held in school of pharmacy in which 15 medical students who were members of talented students' office participated. At the end, through a descriptive study, the participants filled a questionnaire consisting of 86 items in 7 areas concerning their viewpoints toward the program. Data was analyzed by SPSS software. Results: Satisfaction rate with the workshop was very high (4±0.2). The workshop effects and achievements were assessed as positive (3.9±0.49). They ascribed medicine and biotechnology as closely associated and believed that getting familiar with biotechnological issues was necessary for medical students. Conclusion: With regard to positive viewpoints of medical students towards acquaintance with biotechno-logy and necessity of this matter in medical sciences, it is recommended to enrich general medicine curricu-lum using the subjects of this field of science.