Determining the rate of achievement of outpatient education standards in major departments of Shiraz medical school from interns’ viewpoints, based on ministry's clinical education standards in 2018–2019

INTRODUCTION: In order to improve outpatient education, it is necessary to carry out formative standard evaluation to reveal the strengths and weaknesses to improve planning the quality of clinical education. Due to numerous challenges in clinical education, the present study was conducted to determine the extent to which outpatient education standards were achieved in the major departments of Shiraz Medical School. METHODS: In this quantitative combined, cross-sectional and practical investigation in the academic year 2018–2019, 178 interns who had passed the outpatient education in the four major wards (internal medicine, pediatrics, gynecology, and surgery) in Shiraz Medical School were randomly selected. A 26-item researcher-made questionnaire, based on the Handbook of the Ministry of Clinical Education (Outpatient Education) for Health and Medical Education's Criteria and indicators, was used in three areas of preparation, timing and implementation; and the psychometric properties of the questionnaire were determined. For quantitative data analysis, SPSS version 22 was used. Furthermore, we performed a qualitative study through semi-structured interviews with 16 interns and analyzed the data using MAXQDA 10 software. RESULTS: The results of the quantitative study showed that 8.4% of interns evaluated the program as poor, 66.3% moderate, and 25.3% good. The qualitative study showed that number and diversity of patients, instructor's educational model, and number of interns had a significant role. CONCLUSION: Although the outpatient teaching in the four major departments of Shiraz Medical School was evaluated relatively acceptable, it is far from the ideal point and need to be improved.