Curriculum for the new college of health sciences: A departure from the traditional medical education.

As an outgrowth of the Report of the Imperial Commission on the Study of Health and Medical Problems, The College of Health Sciences was established as the basic educational unit to provide comprehensive health care education within the framework of a team approach to Iranian national health care. The programs are to nonrestrictive, thereby demonstrating the principles of the concept and practice. Because of this, the College is a multidiscipline institution, and will expand to include programs of study in all health care specialties. The program of study for the equivalent of the baccalaureate degree in the College is based on functional analysis of the tasks to be performed by the primary care workers called behdars. The curriculum is task oriented and is made up to two sections, each of 33 months instruction. The first year concentrates on basic functional science and medicine in an academic setting, and the following two years are spent in clinical training in geographically diverse dispensaries and health care facilities. The second stage of the academic program will be available to graduate behdars who have successfully completed two or more years of work in the health care network and who display academic and professional excellence. Through a unit system approach these candidates for doctor of medicine will complete eleven months or more of comprehensive instruction in functional basic sciences, and this will be followed by two years in comprehensive hospital internship.