Objectives This study aimed to explore Swedish physicians’ perceptions regarding physician-patient communication in an Iranian context and to obtain a deeper understanding of their lived experience when encountering Middle Eastern and Swedish patients in their daily work. Methods This is a multi-method study, including conventional content analysis in combination with phenomenological methodology. A triangulation approach to data collection and analysis was used. Serving the purpose of the study, twelve Swedish physicians with previous experience of Middle Eastern patients were purposely selected to participate in the study. They watched a video showing simulated patient encounter in an Iranian context. The video served as a trigger. Semi-structured interviews were conducted focusing on the participants’ perceptions of the video and their lived experiences. Constant comparative analysis was used for a deep understanding of the data. Results The core themes were cultural diversity, doctor-centeredness, and patient-centeredness. Cultural diversity was a convergent theme and included trust, interpersonal interaction, context, and doctor dominancy. Patient-centeredness and doctor-centeredness were divergent themes and included doctors’ authority, equity, the experience of illness, and accountability. Conclusions The participants confirmed large cultural differences in doctor-patient communication when encountering Iranian and Swedish patients. Inter-cultural and cross-cultural competencies were made visible. To be able to appreciate other cultures’ health values, beliefs, and behaviors, increased cultural competence in health care is of importance.

Background: In the recent decades, Inter-Professional Team Objective Structured Clinical Examination (ITOSCE) has been considered as an efficient tool in evaluating the teamwork and the Inter-professional competences.

Background:The most spectacular progress of the mankind is made by learning. One of the most effective factors that help learning among students is their learning styles. According to individual differences, people use various learning styles; therefore, it is of utmost importance to know the learning style of learners and find what reasons can affect it, in order to train them. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between the learning styles of postgraduate students in Kerman University of Medical Sciences and their baseline characteristics.Patients and Methods: In this cross-correlation study, 400 postgraduate students of Kerman University of Medical Sciences were randomly selected. To collect data, the Kolb's learning styles questionnaire was distributed among the participants. The validity of the instruments was determined in terms of content validity, and the reliability was gained through internal consistency methods. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient was found to be 0.75; Descriptive statistics (percentage, frequency, mean, and standard deviation) and analytical tests (ANOVA and chi-square) were performed to analyze the data. Results: The findings indicated a significant difference between learning styles; most postgraduate students at Kerman University of Medical Sciences used the converging learning style. Totally, 51%, 31%, 10%, and 8% of the participants used convergent, assimilator, accommodator, and divergent learning styles, respectively. No statistically significant relationship was found between the learning styles and baseline variables.Conclusions: According to the results of this study, the most dominant learning style of postgraduate students is the convergent style. These findings are useful for learning system. Therefore, the results of this study and similar research on students' learning styles in other universities can be considered as a baseline for the identification of learning styles as well as planning for them.

Background: The professional life has been frequently made by social interactions in which different forms of professional collaboration appear. Everybody has different attitudes through his/her life that could influence on choosing profession and probably the approach towards inter professional work. In order to study the current attitude towards planning educational courses and assess efficiency of the ongoing educational courses, the present study has normalized the Persian version of the ‘Attitudes to Health Professionals Questionnaire’ (AHPQ).Method: After permission from questionnaire developers, in order to confirm face and content validity, the process of translation and back translation was performed. Then it was sent to ten scholars (Delphi Technique) and their comments were considered for providing the final copy. The questionnaire was back translation from Persian into English. The final version was compared with the original questionnaire in terms of concepts. Reliability confirm by test-retest and internal consistency (intra class correlation and Cronbach alpha coefficient).The construct validity was confirmed by exploratory factor analysis. Results: According to the first phase (67 participants), wide range has caused unnecessary variations in answers; so reliability has been confirmed in larger sample size (104 participants) after decreasing the extent of scale from 10 to 5 points. Exploratory factor analysis was used by main construct and rotation of maximum variance. Final reliability was confirmed by Cronbach alpha as 0. 899. Three underlying constructs of professional ethics, professional autonomy and patient-centered care had been revealed in the questionnaire.Conclusion: In addition to confirmation of AHPQ construct validity, reveals that such a tool is able to specify the attitude of health team members based on their perceived importance towards the basis of inter professional collaboration. Thus, recognizing and directing priorities of health care team in inter professional collaboration enables us to manage establishment, integrity, sustainability and coordination of group activities.

This review study, performed in 2014, sought to determine the requirements for the introduction of team-based learning (TBL) in medical universities. Evidence Acquisition: In this review study, relevant literature was found by searching PubMed, MEDLINE, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, and ProQuest using the keywords of team based learning, facilitate, barrier, and challenge without any time limitation. First, the literature was selected after a review of the abstracts. Subsequently, according to the relevance to the study questions, 12 articles were included in the analysis. Results: Overall, it is essential that educational administrators fully consider the prerequisites of TBL implementation in 2 areas of pre-implementation infrastructure and execution. This goal can be attained through the establishment of 4 underlying substrates of management, planning, facilities and financial and human resources. Requirements during the implementation of TBL encompass orientation phase, process elements, and human resources skills. Fulfilling these requirements can generate positive attitude and support amongst administrators, faculty members, and students and bolster the chance of the success of plans to move the curriculum of medical universities to a more TBL-oriented approach. Conclusions: Meeting the prerequisites to incorporating TBL in the curriculum of medical universities plays a pivotal role in its success. Accordingly, in the assessment of the curriculum of medical universities, these requirements should be fully identified and fulfilled so as to be able to devise appropriate plans for the success of teaching methods.