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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the medical education strategic planning to align with international best practices in university governance.

Research methods used: content analysis, analysis of modern concepts of strategic planning in universities. The study used two main methodological approaches: analysis of medical education governance and analysis of strategic planning in universities.

Applied models of educational governance at most universities are not always effective in achieving their goals. A strategy is a complex and potentially powerful tool, with the help of which a modern university can withstand the constantly changing environment. By using such a tool, the university can gain prestige, leading positions and recognition in international scientific and educational spheres. Therefore, strategy and strategic planning deserve close attention as a higher education governance tool, suitable not only for a medical college but also for a wide range of other types of social organizations.

Education is a policy priority of any state determining the state’s level of modern socio-economic development and building a productive workforce. The quality of human resources primarily depends on the system of higher education, which is carried out by universities. Foreign countries’ experience shows that prosperity of the state and society is impossible without a healthy nation. Improving the quality of people’s lives depends, in particular, on health education, so “medical education governance” is how we prepare personnel, which must be properly trained and qualified to provide high-quality health care services. Kazakhstan medical universities are increasingly becoming players in the medical education market, but the governance systems of universities are lagging behind. The success of universities largely depends on the results of their strategic planning, which is why special attention should be given to strategic planning analysis. Despite the importance of analyzing medical education governance, there has been insufficient research in this area in Kazakhstan.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the question of how scientific excellency can be achieved. The origin of scientific excellency in Iran, national and international experiences concerning the subject has been investigated to review the literature. The authors also designed a process and then a model to test the course. Guilan University of Medical Sciences was selected as a case study for the research.

The approach used in this paper is from Future Studies, with emphasis on the “Participatory Learning and Action” method. It means that different stakeholders, including the strategic council members, managers, faculty members, students, alumni and non-academic staff, have been involved in different parts of the process.

After semantic analysis of scientific excellency in the theoretical field; the examination of national and international experiences in universities; the analysis of higher-level documents of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education as well as strategic documents of the university; the determination of the strengths and weaknesses of the Guilan University of Medical Sciences in online survey; the completion of the scientific excellency canvas in the expert panel and finally obtaining other stakeholders, a conceptual model was designed for achieving scientific excellency.

The study of the actions, policies and trends of pioneering universities indicates that it is important to consider issues such as the internationalization of education and research and the modification of university structures. To achieve a superior national and international status, the university must specifically enhance a range of different aspects, from intangible aspects, such as motivation of employees to tangible aspects, such as human resources, structure and facilities.

Scientific excellency is going to be one of main streams between universities to attract top students and researchers from all over the world. There has been little academic attempt on scientific excellency. In this research, first the authors examined the concept of scientific excellency, criteria and measurement in higher education, then based on that case study and participatory action learning method, a conceptual framework to achieve scientific excellency in Iran’s higher education system was proposed.

This article examines the impact of the 1919 influenza pandemic on the life and culture of Australian universities, and the curious absence of sustained discussion about the crisis in university magazines. It considers two contexts, from the perspective of the general university population, and from the particular focus of medical students.

The primary source for this analysis is based on detailed reading of university magazines across three universities, as well as other primary and secondary literature. The article was written during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, which has limited access to some other magazines held in library collections, but the corpus of material is more than sufficient.

This article shows that the pandemic further deferred the resumption of university life after a hiatus during the First World War. The failure to identify the causal agent limited technical discussion in medical school magazines.

This is one of the first dedicated studies of the effect of the 1919 influenza pandemic on Australian universities. It joins a growing body of work considering the effect of the influenza on different community groups.

The aim of this paper is to look at the relationship between research in Iranian medical universities, together with their Web Impact Factor (WIF).

The Altavista search engine was chosen because of its advanced search facilities for counting links and having a wider scope of academic web sites than other search engines. It was searched for determining the number of pages, in‐links and self‐links of 42 web sites of Iranian medical universities. The Web Impact Factor (WIF) was calculated by two formulas and the relationship between the two grades of universities (WIF and ISI) was calculated by using the Spearman's correlation coefficient.

Tehran, Iran and Gilan medical universities had the first to third grade in the number of web sites' pages. The number of in‐links to Tehran, Isfahan and Tabriz medical universities was more than the others. The WIF of universities' web sites was counted in four groups with regard to their number of web pages and Kerman, Kermanshah, Fasa and Qom had the highest grades of WIF in each group, but there was no meaningful relationship between WIF grades and ISI grades. Also, the WIF of university web sites was counted with regard to the number of their members in the four groups and the result shows that Hormozgan, Shiraz, Isfahan and Tehran had the highest grade in each group. Again, there was no meaningful relation between WIF grades and ISI grades.

It seems that counting the number of in‐links is a better scale for ranking university web sites than WIF. WIF is proposed only in situations where the number of web pages is about equal.

The paper provides rankings, for the first time, of Iranian medical university web sites with regard to WIF based on the number of the web pages as well as on the number of the academic staff. The research shows a methodology that others can follow.

The only comprehensive list of British medical libraries hitherto available has been that in The Aslib directory 1928, and there is an extended account of those in London in Reginald Rye, The students' guide to the libraries of London (3rd ed., 1927), pp. 362–77. The new list, here put forward, is intended to bring the information from those two books of reference up to date, after nearly twenty years. British libraries are briefly listed among ‘Medical libraries outside North America’ in the Medical Library Association's A handbook of medical library practice, ed. Janet Doe, Chicago, American library association 1943, chapter 1, appendix 2, pages 41–64. The meagre information in that list, if contrasted with the detailed documentation of American and Canadian libraries in successive issues of the American medical directory, accentuates the need for us to know ourselves better. Several, perhaps many, medical librarians have had to compile lists of kindred libraries for their own convenience. A list which I had thus prepared seemed to Aslib to offer adequate basis for a Directory of British medical libraries, and in order to complete it Aslib issued a questionnaire in the autumn of 1944 to libraries known to possess medical collections and to hospitals, medical societies, and medical institutions throughout the British Isles. The information obtained from the generous response to this questionnaire is epitomized in the list which follows. I am responsible for all omissions and errors and I hope that those who detect any will supply corrections and additions so that this preliminary list may be revised and become a definitive Directory.

Studies show that economic sanctions have had major negative impacts on health systems during the past years. The aim of this study is to identify the impacts of US sanctions on the performance of public hospitals in Iran.

A qualitative research study was conducted between October 2019 and September 2020 in Kermanshah Province, Iran. Semi-structured, face-to-face interviews, lasting between 25 and 90 min, were carried out with 20 participants in seven public hospitals affiliated to the authors’ institution in Kermanshah Province. Inductive thematic analysis was used to identify themes in the data.

Five main themes emerged from the analysis: resource management challenges; financial restrictions; interruptions in planning; reductions in the quality of service delivery; and changes in organizational relationships.

The results of the present study demonstrate that US economic sanctions have considerably reduced access to necessary medical equipment and medicines for public hospitals in Iran. Policymakers should monitor the distribution of equipment and pharmaceutical products within public hospitals in Iran and take actions to ameliorate shortages during times of economic sanctions.

The purpose of this study is to propose a research model based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model to examine whether media richness (MR), human-system interaction (HSI) and human-human interaction (HHI) as technological feature antecedents to medical professionals’ learning engagement (LE) can affect their learning persistence (LP) in massive open online courses (MOOCs).

Sample data for this study were collected from medical professionals at six university-/medical university-affiliated hospitals in Taiwan. A total of 600 questionnaires were distributed, and 309 (51.5%) usable questionnaires were analyzed using structural equation modeling in this study.

This study certified that medical professionals’ perceived MR, HSI and HHI in MOOCs positively affected their emotional LE, cognitive LE and social LE elicited by MOOCs, which together explained their LP in MOOCs. The results support all proposed hypotheses and the research model accounts for 84.1% of the variance in medical professionals’ LP in MOOCs.

This study uses the S-O-R model as a theoretical base to construct medical professionals’ LP in MOOCs as a series of the psychological process, which is affected by MR and interaction (i.e. HSI and HHI). Noteworthily, three psychological constructs, emotional LE, cognitive LE and social LE, are adopted to represent medical professionals’ organisms of MOOCs adoption. To date, hedonic/utilitarian concepts are more commonly adopted as organisms in prior studies using the S-O-R model and psychological constructs have received lesser attention. Hence, this study enriches the S-O-R model into an invaluable context, and this study’s contribution on the application of capturing psychological constructs for completely explaining three types of technological features as external stimuli to medical professionals’ LP in MOOCs is well-documented.

The purpose of this paper is to measure the relationship between organizational social capital and retention of faculty members in Kerman University of Medical Sciences in 2011.

Using a stratified multistage sampling, 120 faculty members were recruited to fill the questionnaire.

There were a direct and positive bilateral (r=0.65) relationship between social capital and retention of faculty members.

The university officials and policy makers need to pay closer attention to some issues such as providing welfare facilities, salary and wages, benefits, interests and appreciation for faculty members.

Key forces shaping higher education drive institutions to make strategic choices to locate themselves in niches where they can make use of their resources effectively and efficiently. However, the concepts of strategy and strategic positioning in higher education are contested issues due to the nature and complexity of the sector and the university. As an industry facing increasing pressure toward marketization and competition, this study calls for an analysis of higher education, as an industry, in a more business-oriented framework. This chapter makes a contribution to scholarly research in higher education by applying Porter’s five forces framework to medical education. In doing so, it provides a foundational perspective on the competitive landscape, its environment, its organizations, and the groups and individuals that make up the higher and medical education sector.

Students’ academic achievement is a multifaceted phenomenon. While depression can suppress academic performance, academic satisfaction can promote it. This study aims to investigate the relationship between depression and academic satisfaction among students studying at Shahroud University of Medical Sciences.

This cross-sectional study was carried out on 312 undergraduate students of Shahroud University of Medical Sciences. Data collection tools included demographic data form, University Student Depression Inventory and academic satisfaction scale. Data were collected by a simple random sampling method and self-reporting by the participants. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics (multivariate multiple regression analysis and multivariate linear regression).

The participants’ mean depression and academic satisfaction scores were 71.92 ± 22.94 and 53.70 ± 9.69, respectively. In addition, the depression score was significantly and inversely correlated with students' academic satisfaction (r = −0.122, p-value = 0.031). Moreover, there was a significant correlation between students’ depression with marital status, level of the semester, interest in the field of study and study topic.

This study emphasizes improving education, spiritual and social support and strengthens strategies to deal with depression and medical science students’ related factors.

Students of medical sciences are exposed to depression during their college years, which is related to their academic satisfaction.