Mutual Viewpoints of Faculty Members and Residents Regarding Clinical and Educational Performance Compliance with Professional Ethics in Qazvin University of Medical Sciences

Introduction: Dualism in the professional identity of medical faculty members and residents and conflict between the role of education and patient care have caused problems at professional performance level. This study was conducted to examine the viewpoints of faculty members and residents regarding clinical and educational performance compliance with professional ethics. Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study was performed on all residents and clinical faculty members of Qazvin University of Medical Sciences in 2013. Data collection tools were questionnaires retrieved from Iranian-Islamic sources, whose validity and reliability had been verified. The questionnaires consisted of three parts: demographic data, ethical performance in educational and clinical fields. The collected data were analyzed using Chi-square test Kruskal- Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests. Results: Findings showed that in the field of clinical performance, the highest and lowest scores belonged to conscience domain and confession of error domain respectively (90.3% versus 50% for faculty members and 93% versus 62.1% for residents). In the educational field, the most known performance problems of faculty members and residents were lack of attention to learners’ educational problems (65.5%) and the lack of interest to participate in teaching weaker students (68.8%). Conclusion: Results indicated that the state of ethical-professional performance of faculty members and residents were moderate in the clinical and educational fields, which was far from the desirable status. Hence, comprehensive and codified interventions are suggested for improving professional practice of faculty members and residents in educational centers in order to reduce the distance between the quality of education and patient care.