Department of medical education; A personal history

This is a brief overview of the history of formal introduction of the art andscience of education into the sphere of medical education in shiraz. before thisintroduction medical education was, and in the majority of other institutionsworld-wide still is, a simple transfer of knowledge from teacher to student. thestudents accepted their passive role because this was how they had been taughtall their life. the teachers perpetuated this process because this was how theywere taught themselves. after all, what was good enough for them was goodenough for the students. all one needed to be a good teacher was to be anexpert in ones field.what the department of medical education attempted to do locally andthe regional teacher training center internationally, was to promulgateproblem-based, learner directed teaching using the principles of adult learningand using evaluation methods that were valid and reliable.this article describes the process used for this transformation and some of theresults obtained.