Comparison of Graduate Medical Education in Iran with WFME International Guidelines: Quality Improvement in Postgraduate Medical Education

In 2001, following the development of International Standards in basic medical education, WFME appointed an international Task Force for development of International Guidelines for Postgraduate Specialist Training. Reports of this Task Force were published in September 2001. These Guidelines has been structured in 9 areas and 37 sub-areas. The areas of these guidelines are mission & outcomes, training process, assessment of trainees, trainees, staffing, training setting and educational resources, evaluation of training programme, governance and administration, and quality review and continuous improvement In each area, there are one or more sub-areas in which the quality postgraduate training is defined in two level of basic and quality improvement standards. Comparison of Graduate Medical Education system in Iran regarding related Rules and Bylaws specially Policies & Procedures and educational standards of new evaluation and accreditation of GME with WFME International Guidelines: Quality improvement in Postgraduate Medical Education can highlight the strengths and weaknesses of this system. In this article, first we describe each standard of WFME Guidelines, and then compare our system with it. The results of this comparison reveal that our GME system has appropriate to full compliance with 34 0f 37 basic standards of WFME for Postgraduate Specialist Training.