What do medical graduates think of their earlier research projects?

Background: Research project is an educational means to increase the students’ creativity and motivates them to take on solving medical and health problems.Purpose: To assess the attitudes of Qazvin’s medical practitioners toward their earlier research projects. Methods: The views of 202 physicians (residents, general practitioners, specialists and sub-specialists) who were practicing in Qazvin province and had been graduated between 1986 and 2001 were collected with a selfadministered structured questionnaire.Results: Most research projects did not received any facilities from their universities. Only 2.5% had received financial support. Of 202 physicians, 60.9% received no supervision in choosing their research projects topics. Most research projects had little or no impact on the scientific and practical skills, future careers and their postgraduate residency program. However, most physicians stated that research project is necessary for medical students and pointed out the need for more education on research methodologic fundamentals. Of all respondents, 73% believedthat they had little or no knowledge about research methodologies.Conclusion: Overall, our findings indicate that the research projects do not meet the standards of sound research work.