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Copyright: Copyright © 2017, Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits copy and redistribute the material just in noncommercial usages, provided the original work is properly cited.
1. Background
Maintenance and improvement of the quality of health services cannot be achieved in the healthcare system unless proper plans are designed and implemented at individual level to be extended to the entire system (1, 2). To this end, the accreditation council for graduate medical education (ACGME) has introduced 6 core competencies, including patient care, medical knowledge, practice-based learning and improvement (PBLI), communication skills, professionalism, and system-based practice since 1999 with the aim of training competent and efficient physicians.
Among the mentioned competencies, PBLI monitors the improvement and quality of physicians’ performance during their professional practice (3, 4). The importance of PBLI is highlighted, as physicians should monitor and improve the quality of their practice and keep themselves updated with medical advances. In a broader rationale, it is believed that physicians should be pioneers in making changes rather than reacting to changes made by others. Also, positive changes in the behavior and performance of individuals are known to have positive effects on larger systems and lead to the promotion of the health system (2).
One of the main goals of education in training medical students is to teach them how to learn continuously after graduation and to improve the quality of their practice. Therefore, among all main competencies introduced by ACGME, PBLI ensures the quality of physician’s practice and health outcomes. Nevertheless, its comprehensive implementation is difficult due to ambiguity in the literature (3, 5).
So far, there has been no similar research in this area in Iran. Therefore, understanding and knowledge of the viewpoints of medical professionals, planners, and graduates about the concept of PBLI and investigating its current status are required for making appropriate policies in this area.
2. Methods
This study was performed through thematic content analysis in Tehran, Iran from June 2016 to January 2017.
2.1. Participants
The participants included professors, officials of medical education planning, experts in the field, and physicians with real-life experiences of dealing with the research subject. The participants were selected...