摘要：Received: November 2005 Accepted: Feburary 2006Corresponding author:Dr Aeen Mohammadi, is aresearcher in , the Secretariat for Education and StudentAffairs of Ministry of Health and Medical Education,Tehran,Iran.13th floor, Secretariat for Education and Student Affairs,Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Simaye IranSt., Falamak Jonoobi Ave, Shahrake Ghods, TehranEmail: aeenmohammadi@tums.ac.ir1 Researcher, the Secretariat for Education and Student Affairs of Ministry of Health and Medical Education ofIran Faculty of Medical Sciences/ University of Tehran2 Researcher, Educational development center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences3 Former Deputy Minister for Education and Student Affairs of Health and Medical Education of Iran, Faculty ofShaheed Beheshti University of Medical SciencesBackground and purpose: After two decades of expansion of medical schools and increasing thenumber of medical students as one of the most attainable solutions for the problem of substandardstatus of Iranian community health, recently, quality-based policies in medical education have takenpriority over most of the national health plans. To determine differences in the field of educationbetween Iranian medical schools by stratifying their educational services.Method: To measure the educational performance that could be utilized to rate the schools nationwide,a benchmarking tool, consisting of more than 60 indicators, was devised. Each school was asked tointroduce a representative who would complete a questionnaire, which was designed to collectschools’ information. In the next step, all the divisions were visited by one of the project’s membersand the school’s representative to revise and approve the data. Then, data retrieval was performedand verified at the project’s office. Finally, a special computer software was exploited to perform thefinal analysis.Results: There were 45 public and private medical schools nationwide, which were stratified basedon their individual scores. Furthermore, all schools were also ranked in each indicator.Conclusion: This study as one of the phases of Strategy Compilation for Educational Missions of theNational System of Medical Education, defines the educational strengths and weaknesses of Iranianmedical schools that could be used as a measure for authorities to determine the developmentallimits and current stance of the medical schools; and optimize their budget and facilities.Keywords: EDUCATION, MEDICAL, IRAN, RANKINGS, EDUCATIONAL PERFORMANCE, STRATIFICATION, SCHOOL,BENCHMARKING, RANKING.Journal of Medical Education Spring2006; 9(1); 55-61
