Tehran University Medical Journal

Background: The idea of integration of medical education into health care system with the goal of comprehensive self sufficiency and complete response to public health needs were initiated in 1985. There were many prose and cones in this procedure which raised many controversies. The dilemma about strengths and weaknesses increased in 2002 during which Iran parliament tried to change the situation. In this study we tried to conclude and exit the dilemma.

Materials and Methods: We studied the attitude of key academic person regarding the integration. In a cross-sectional study using a pretested questionnaire, we assessed the attitude of 556 academic staffs and managers from eight randomly selected medical universities.

Results: Most of respondents agreed the positive out come of integration like establishment of disease surveillance and improving in health indicators, but they believed that the quality of medical education has decreased. Most of respondents suppose that dissociation of medical education may cause a lot of problems.

Conclusion: There are a lot of controversies regarding the strengths and weaknesses of integration. External factors were causes of decreasing the quality of education so it is important to decide about the future by considering external factors.