Self assessment of medical education as a tool for quality assurance and accreditation of al-Azhar Faculty of Medicine

Abstract EN

Background : The establishment of quality assurance and accreditation in medical education is one of the national reform plans in Egypt.

Aim of the Study : To identify the current situation of medical education program in-use of Al-Azhar Faculty of Medicine, Cairo, Egypt according to opinion of their staff.

Material and Methods : A cross sectional study was conducted to assess the situation of medical education in the opinion of medical staff.

By stratified random sample a total of 128 medical staff of various posts were chosen to explore the underlying variables.

The medical staff was enrolled from different departments of the Faculty during their daily work in the period from February 2005 through March 2006.

Well structured questionnaire were used for collection of the required data.

Administrative and ethical issues including autonomy, confidentiality and informed consent were obtained during all stages of the study.

Results : The study found that 63.3 % of the studied sample was professors, 40.6 % were trained in specialty outside the country and 18.0 % had international certificate.

The majority of the studied staff (82.8 %) agreed on use of the International Standards of medical education and 38.3 % were seeing this standard.

Nearly 60.9 % of the staff knows that the faculty has a mission but 36.7 % of them saw this mission, and 9.3 % share in its mission formulation.

Large proportion of the studied staff (74.2 %) considered basic sciences sharing greatly in preparing the student to clinical sciences, and 45.3 % of them considered that there is a great shortage in most basic sciences.

About 49.2 % of the staff knows that the faculty had educational objectives ; only 36.7 % seeing these objectives and 6.3 % shared in its formulation.

Nearly 47.6 % of the studied staff has a copy of the curriculum, 46.8 % read it, and only 39.8 % know that there is a curriculum committee.

Half of the studied staff (53.9 %) knows that the curriculum objectives concise and clear, while 43.8 % discussed it and only 18.8 % of medical students know the curriculum objectives in the opinion of staff.

Small proportions of staff (56.2 %, 37.5 %, and 36.7 %) agree that the educational objectives are corresponding with curriculum content, educational method, and examination methods respectively.

Nearly 35.9 %, 46.1 %, 48.4 %, 41.4 %, 23.4 % and 22.7 % of the studied staff respectively considered that the present curricula were regular, avoid duplication, containing suitable application of material related to sciences, regularly developed and in general they are comfortable on the curriculum at all.

59.4 % and 50.0 % of the studied sample considered the curriculum size and timing for teaching it are suitable.

Conclusion: The findings of this study identified great shortage of staff knowledge about quality standard, mission, curriculum and educational objectives.

This study suggests the need for educational reform through the use of international standards, mission, educational objectives, and well constructed curriculum as to include these topics in the training courses to the new and expected medical staff in the medical education unit.