Estatus of knowledge thesis resulted from medical students dissertation fulfilled at Gorgan Medical School

Background and Objective: Over half of medical researches in Iran are done by students of different levels as their thesis. In medical school, thesis is a 6 hours mandatory course. This study caried out to determine the publication of thesis in faculty of medical in Gorgan, located in North of Iran. Materials and Methods: This descriptive study was performed on all thesis and all faculty members who have been advisor of at least one thesis up to the time of this study. To collect data, we used a questionnaire which contained questions about the research, their output and any obstacles to publication. All data have been analyzed by SPSS-13 software and Chi-Square test. Results: According to the collected information, 322 thesis were directed by 43 faculty academic members of Gorgan Medical School. 87.6% and 12.4% thesis supervisors were clinical and basic science academic members respectively. The majority of 127 (39.4%) published papers have either been published by domestic medical journals or represented in medical seminars inside the country. Basic members have published 70% of their papers while only 35.1% of clinical faculty members have published their research findings. Experimental papers have been published more than other papers (48.5%). The most important publication barrier were lack of time and collaborator in this matter. Conclusion: This study showed that publication rate of medical student thesis is far from ideal.