Evaluation of medical students’ views on the current state of ‎clinical education

Introduction: Today, medical education provides the human force that runs the health care system; therefore it requires continuous upgrade by studying the current state and identifying its strengths and weaknesses. Students as recipients of training are the best source for identifying the existing problems. This study reviews the quality of clinical education from the perspective of medical students.

Methods: This descriptive analytic study was done on 119 samples that selection with convenience sampling.

 Data collection questionnaire including questions about demographic information,
goals of the educational program, the performance of the teacher, and the learning environment, was distributed among samples. Validity of this questionnaire in previous studies was reported 0.88 through test re-test method. The data was analyzed using SPSS 15 software and descriptive and analytic statistics tests.

Results: From 130 distributed questionnaires, 119 were completed and returned. The results showed 57.7% of the students were female and the average age was 24 ±4.1 years. Generally, 61.3% of students believed that the conditions in different examined fields, almost meet their expectations. The average score achieved in fields such as the
goals of the program and the performance of the teacher was higher over the rest of the fields.
Conclusion: According to the results of this study, it seems the educational programs offered in the course of clinical training, must be revised. Reduction of the number of students, improving accommodation and means of training are among the various factors
which can help upgrade the quality of clinical education and consequently improve the satisfaction of the students.