Transformational Packages in Medical Sciences Education; the Importance of Roadmap
Reza Malekpour Afshar, Somayeh Noori Hekmat, Reza Dehnavieh, Monire Balochi
2019
Strides in Development of Medical Education
The existence of an effective health service delivery system is closely linked to the status of medical education. Although we have seen significant breakthroughs in the field of medical education in recent decades, the system has also faced challenges over the past few years and these challenges have necessitated reforms in this area. In this regard, the Ministry of Health and Medical Education of Iran started the transformation program of the medical education sector in 2014 (1). Implementing
more »
... medical sciences education packages can be a good response to environmental changes. These packages will affect all stakeholders in the field of higher education. Therefore, along with the positive effects of their proper implementation on these stakeholders, if not properly implemented, they can be regarded as unsuccessful reforms and have devastating effects on the medical education of the country. In addition, at a larger scale, reform has always been one of the signs of success or failure of governments, and in future, packages will also be used as a criterion for judging the performance of the government in the field of health higher education. Although the educational transformation program is presented in separate packages to medical universities and this helps them to be better implemented, because of some of their features, their implementation has its own complexities. Educational development packages cover a wide range of audiences, including students and faculty members, and vary greatly in function. These packages fall into the different content-based, process-based, output-driven, contextual, and monitoring groups. Various departments of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education and the universities of medical sciences of the country have been introduced as implementing units of packages. The level of interventions of these packages also varies and encompasses different academic, regional, national, committee and international levels (2). The interventions needed to implement educational packages vary with respect to implementation period, and some of them such as infrastructure have a short-term vision, and some, such as future studies, have a longer-term vision. Iran's Higher Education Transformation Program is one of the health reform programs, and considering the challenges of such reform programs in the country can help better implement these packages. The following strategies appear to have a serious impact on the better deployment of packages. The need for a comprehensive roadmap: A roadmap is one of the future studies tools which is a method of discovering and describing a desirable future and explaining the way to achieve it in a simple and understandable language for the organization. Roadmap is a powerful tool for supporting plans and provides the information, processes and tools needed. Roadmaps are compiled to identify and remove implementation constraints (3). As a result, the tool is expected to create the desired outlook, identify and build new capacities and capabilities, and take advantage of opportunities in the future. Also, with this approach, problems and failures due to the future conditions of the packages can be identified and resolved.
doi:10.5812/sdme.91834
fatcat:jxkulrnwzzfcjjut5vsrxwkwsi