Document Type : Letter to editor
Authors
- AmirAli Moodi Ghalibaf 1
- Hamid Yazdaninejad 2
- Radman Amiri 3
- Amir Hossain Karimi 4
- Zahra Safari 5
- Ali Akbar Khosravi-Larijani 6
- Keivan Lashkari 7
- Amir Mohammad Parsanahad 8
- Mohammad Javad Ghapanchian 2
- Sina Yousefian 9
- Ali Madadi-Mahani 10
- Ali Mohammad-Hassani 11
- Mahla Khayat-Rasouli 12
- Aeen Mohammadi 13
1 Student Committee of Medical Education Development, Education Development Center, Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Birjand, Iran
2 Student Committee of Medical Education Development, Education Development Center, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran
3 Student Committee of Medical Education Development, Education Development Center, Dezful University of Medical Sciences, Dezful, Iran
4 Student Committee of Medical Education Development, Education Development Center, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran
5 Student Committee of Medical Education Development, Education Development Center, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran
6 Student Committee of Medical Education Development, Education Development Center, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran
7 Student Committee of Medical Education Development, Education Development Center, Ardabil University of Medical Sciences, Ardabil, Iran
8 Student Committee of Medical Education Development, Education Development Center, Abadan University of Medical Sciences, Abadan, Iran
9 Student Committee of Medical Education Development, Education Development Center, Arak University of Medical Sciences, Arak, Iran
10 Student Committee of Medical Education Development, Education Development Center, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran
11 Student Committee of Medical Education Development, Education Development Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran
12 Student Committee of Medical Education Development, Education Development Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
13 Department of E-learning in Medical Education, Center of Excellence for E-learning in Medical Education, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Keywords
Dear Editor,
From the past decades to the present, medical education has been known as one of the most important fields of education which trains those who can, directly and indirectly, affect human health and lives (1). Despite medical education being divided into various sectors, its ultimate aim is to “supply society with knowledgeable, skilled, and up-to-date health profession providers who put patient care above self-interest, and who undertake to maintain and develop their expertise over the course of a lifelong career”. Therefore, medical education is imagined as a busy, clamorous place, where a host of pedagogical practices, educational philosophies, and conceptual frameworks collide (2). As students are known as one of the main targets of the medical education system, it seems that they can potentially act as a propulsion engine for the medical education system (3); therefore, in the present article, we are going to present the concept of the student committee of medical education development (SCMED).
Having a detailed view of the medical students' activities indicates that they spend their time in various curricular and extracurricular activities. Medical students’ extracurricular activities are not limited to educational activities; they can go further to include a wide range of activities such as research, innovation, and social activity (4). Interestingly, in 2017, a student committee was formed in the Iranian Universities of Medical Sciences called SCMED.
To express the concept of the SCMED, it is important to note that the main aims of the committee were to have beneficial impacts on the medical education system, improve the outcomes of the medical schools, educate multidimensional students, and highlight the role of the students in not only during their educational period but also after their graduation. To maintain the goals of the SCMED, a four-level structure was constructed, from the universities to the Ministry of Health and Medical Education. Additionally, each level of the committee could encompass four main sub-committees, including education, research and innovation, evaluation, and public relations. In detail, the four-level structure of the SCMED consists of the graduate students committee, as the experience-transferring arm, the central committee which includes eleven students that are directly supervised by the Ministry of Health and Medical Education, the regional network which consists of several universities within a specific educational region, and the local committee in each university. In fact, from the top of the network to the bottom, the roles change from policy-making to implementing the policies. According to the structure of the SCMED, specific duties are defined for each level and sub-committees. In detail, the education sub-committee is going to design, implement, and evaluate a comprehensive operating model for empowering students in the field of medical education. The research and innovation sub-committee is going to plan and support the implementation of medical education research projects and innovations in response to the up-to-date needs of the medical education system- in fact, this sub-committee makes the activities evidence-based. The evaluation sub-committee is going to supervise the activities and provide feedback and suggestions to resolve the obstacles. Finally, the public relations sub-committee is not only going to facilitate coordination between different sub-committees and other structural levels but also going to be a bridge for medical students to the higher levels of the medical education administration.
Some similar organizations and committees were developed in the world before the SCMED; however, none of them have the properties of the SCMED, especially being the unique student committee supported by the government which is directly linked to the Ministry of Health and Medical Education. During the past six years, the SCMED presented its effects, such as students' involvement in educational decisions, making students interested in medical education, making the quality of medical education more critical to the students and sensitizing them, making students attracted to the educational research, on the Iranian medical education system as the student committee, there are still some concerns and gaps about such activities; like lack of support, students' interests, and some pitfalls of the SCMED power on the changes on the medical education system and its curriculum. Additionally, among the most highlighted concerns, there is a fundamental question of whether medical students' involvement in such committees and activities is known as the educational goals. Moreover, some previous studies have not presented beneficial impacts of students' activities on the educational system; even, they called them time-wasting activities for medical students; but there is strong evidence against these opinions (5). Overall, it can be stated that the SCMED concept had brilliant impacts during its birth; however, there is still a long way to this student network in the medical educational system.
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