The Effectiveness of the Community Medicine Undergraduate Program in Medical Schools on Enabling Medical Graduates to Work in the Health Systems

Introduction: the main mission of medical schools is to train competent medicaltrainees for providing primary health care services, management of health care team andimproving the health status of the population. the aim of this study was to determinethe effectiveness of the undergraduate program of community medicine departmentamong the graduates as general (family) physicians in health system of east azerbaijan,north-west of` iran. methods: in this cross- sectional study all family physicians ofeast azerbaijan province were included. a questionnaire on the views of graduatesabout the effectiveness of community medicine undergraduate program was used forgathering data. data were analyzed by t-test, anova, and pearson correlation. results:performance of community medicine department in creating competency for providingeffective health services among physicians was 2.13 and management competency was1.96 out of 4. to teach the necessary skills to meet the professional needs in primaryhealth care (phc), tabriz community medicine department was better comparedto azad and other medical schools (p < 0.001). conclusions: the results of the studyshowed that the community medicine program in undergraduate medical education waseffective for future career of physicians in the health system. there is a need to revise thehealth management courses in community medicine program.