Doctor-patient interaction plays an important role in patient satisfaction, treatment results, medical expenses, quality of clinical services and even patient's complaints toward doctors and health care system. Objectives: This study was performed to assess the level of patient satisfaction in the Iranian context. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in a public clinic in Tehran in 2010. The participants included 392 patients who referred to this center for a period of two months. A patient satisfaction questionnaire was used which had 24 items on patient satisfaction with the communication skills of the physician that included six subscale scores. The total score and subscales scores were calculated on a maximum possible of 100. Results: The mean age of the patients was 38 years and 69% of them were female. The education level of most patients was high school diploma or higher (72%). The mean patient satisfaction score was 44 ± 15. Patients expressed highest satisfaction with patient training (56 ± 24) and response to their questions (49 ± 17) while they were least satisfied with the examination (31 ± 23). No significant relation was found between patient age and overall patient satisfaction (P = 0.392, r = 0-.007). In addition, no significant differences were found between the overall scores of male and female or married and single patients. However, highly educated or salaried employee patients showed a higher satisfaction score than self-employed or unemployed patients (P < 0.001). The results of the regression analysis showed education and employment status of patients to be the effective variables on patients' satisfaction. Conclusions: The results of the present study revealed that patients are not highly satisfied with the communication skills of physicians and they were least satisfied only with the quality of examination processes by the physicians. In addition, patients with lower education showed lower satisfaction as well. Thus, a higher quality and elaboration of examination, more patience and better communication skills considering the education and social status of the patients may increase patient satisfaction.

The purpose of this study is investigation about validity and feasibility of clinical assessment methods in the point of view of clinical instructors. The descriptive study was done in Tehran city universities. Population study consisted of academic clinical experts. The instrument was a two-part questionnaire made by using Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) suggested questionnaire and valid scientific resources. Sampling was based-objected. Total of obtained questionnaires were 83 which were collected from universities Tehran University of Medical Sciences (39), Iran University of Medical Sciences (24) and Shahid Beheshti Medical University (20). Data analysis was conducted by SPSS16. Data indicated that the majority of the study population believed that MCQ (97.6%) is used in clinical setting. OSCE (92.8%) and Logbook (86.7%) are the next methods. Furthermore, Multi-Source Feedback (MSF) (8.4%) and Portfolio (6%) are not often used; whereas the most suitable and feasible medical students' clinical assessment tools in variety of domains are completely different so that there are lots of suggested methods for efficient evaluation. Also, the most suitable and feasible methods were the same in 60% cases. Clearly, no single rating is able to provide the whole story about any doctor's ability to practice medicine, as this requires the demonstration of ongoing competence across a number of different general and specific areas.

Nurses’ professional capacity plays an important role in the health system to achieve their mission. This study aimed to investigate the perspectives of nursing practitioners about undergraduate nursing internship and apprenticeship courses and possible ways of renewing the courses.This cross sectional survey was performed over 258 bachelors and practitioners of nursing graduates of Alborz University of medical sciences in the second half of 2012. Based on a multi-stage sampling schedule, questionnaires were used to collect data about the perspectives of nursing practitioners about undergraduate nursing internship and apprenticeship courses.There were 81.4% of females and 80.6%, 17.1% and 2.3% of organizational post of participants were nurse, head nurse and supervisor respectively. The occupied posts for 60.1%, 25.6% and 14.1% of subjects, respectively were nurse, head nurse and the supervisor. The application of the internship and apprenticeship courses in bachelor of nursing were in moderate to high levels. The highest percentages of responses for internship and apprenticeship training courses were in internal surgery nursing and special nursing and the minimum percentage of responses were for community hygiene nursing and mental health nursing.Due to observing moderate to high levels of fulfillment and lack of compliance of training courses, renewing to improve the quality and effectiveness of training programs are highly recommended. This can be effective in the future of nursing career and provide a practical training environment to achieve the goals of theoretical training and can lead nurses to become specialized in their field.