Strides in Development of Medical Education

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Instructor, Social Medicine Dept., Medical School, Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences, Rafsanjan, Iran

2 Associate Professor of Social Medicine Dept., Medical School, Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences, Rafsanjan, Iran.

3 Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences, Rafsanjan, Iran

Abstract

Background & Objective: The validity of a thesis is important from two perspectives First the research issue by itself and second the references that are used in the research The present study was designed to investigate the bibliographies of the theses of Medical students in Rafsanjan University Methods : In this crosssectional study all of the defended theses of Rafsanjan Medical students from 1993 to 2003 (a total of 332 theses) were evaluated Bibliographies were assessed by using a check list Data analysis was done by applying descriptive and analytical statistical methods Results : Mean ( ± SD) of the number of references was 259( ± 1899) and 12% of the theses have not used any references There was no reference to electronic publications and review articles in the studied theses English articles had the highest rate of citation (161%) and abstracts presented in the congresses the lowest (008 %) In whole 61100% of the references belonged to five years prior to the study In 885% of the theses bibliography writing was according to the standard styles Conclusion : It is suggested that by planning educational workshops students be taught to benefit from using more recent scientific published or electronic references in writing their theses

Keywords