Medical assistants' attitude toward one-month education mission in deprived regions in Eastern of Iran

Background: Recent investigations emphasize the beneficial learning chances for practitioners and the promising for make better healthcare support to deprived peoples who have no access to healthcare system appropriately. In Iran, all residents in the last year of their education should go to underserved areas for a month to give service the populations in those areas in healthcare centers. In this study we evaluated the attitude of residents participated in this one-month program for first time in Eastern Iran, Khorasan Razavi. Materials and method: This was a descriptive-analytical research study. We included all residents in their last year of education period occupied in Imam Reza and Qaem Hospitals and passed the one-month program of service to underserved regions population (two general educational centers) in Mashhad, 2015. The tool of research was a researcher-made questionnaire that its reliability and validity was confirmed in a pilot study. All data was entered in SPSS software version 21. Results: 49 last year residents were included in the study. The mean of their age was 34.17±4.75 years’ old. 31 of them was male (63.3%) and 18 were female (36.7%). 98% of them was residence in Mashhad (Capital of Khorasan Razavi Province). 28 participants answered the interest of work in the program: 14 subjects (50%): bad, 10 subjects (35.71%): good and 4 subjects (14.29%): moderate. In order to duration of program, most of residents expressed that it was enough (35, 74.47%), 8 of them (17.02%) indicated that it was not enough and others said that they did not have any comment (4, 8.51%). Conclusion: The system of medical training in mission is the unique in the world. In other studies, or programs, we can see that some voluntaries who participate in medical healthcare missions, however here, in Iran, this is a part of medical education. This can help physicians to be familiar with common problems in their specialties in last year of their education.