Group’s internal evaluation of physiology department of Semnan university of medical sciences

Introduction: Previous studies indicated that self rating or "internal evaluation" is a fundamental determinant to quality development in teaching departments and faculties. The purpose of this study was a group's internal evaluation of Dept. Physiology of Semnan university of medical sciences (SUMS) with regard to quality development of the department. Materials and Methods: This study was performed in the physiology ward of Faculty of Medicine of SUMS utilizing an accreditation model. The assessment covered five areas, namely: "educational objectives", "research activity", "organizational ranking", "teaching achievements" and "logistic parameters". Educational objective and teaching achievement were evaluated at the level of basic clerkship, third grade and third year's medical students. Research activities consisted of number of thesis's supervised, contributions made to seminars and congresses and the number of papers compiled and published in medical periodicals by the teaching staff. Organizational ranking included the head of department, the members of the organizing body, and the teaching staff of the department. Logistic parameters encompassed the manpower and personnel of different sub sectors of the department as well as the available space and facilities of each. In questionnaires according to Likert score, five ranking scale (excellent, good, medium, weak and very weak) were used, and scores between one to five was considered to them. Organizational ranking included, six members of the organizing body, eighty six medical students in third grade, educational space and equipments and teaching and research processes. Entirely, by using questionnaires, information was obtained and on the basis of Gurman’s classification was analyzed. Results: In this evaluation dept. members and students from the view of educational and processes with score 3.43-3.74 respectively, in more than satisfied ranking. Research goals with score 4.26 in excellent ranking , educational and research equipment with score 3.43 in more than satisfied ranking , the point of view of medical students about Dept. physiology with score 3.63 in good ranking . Conclusion: Analysis of the results placed the SUMS department of physiology in the "good" class of the Gurman’s classification indicating an overally desirable modus operandi for the department, but in some areas of the department activity were found to be suboptimal, thus, it requires further improvement.