an exemplar university professor from students’ perspective in tehran university of medical sciences: a qualitative study

Background & aim: universities should play an important role in education commensurate with the expectations of stakeholders and of the community as well. the university professors and teachers have critical positions in education. this research aimed to explore the perspective of students in tehran university of medical sciences (tums) about characteristics of a model teacher.methods & materials: inductive qualitative content analysis was used to explore students’ perspective based on naturalistic philosophy. the participants in this study were 19 students who were enrolled in various courses at tums. to collect data, semi-structured in-depth individual interviews were used. findings were analyzed using conventional content analysis approach.results: the results of the study led to the identification of three main themes: teacher’s science, moral imperatives in education, and communication with students. the first and third theme had a subtheme called science and oration and flexibility of classroom atmosphere.conclusion: based on the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that students observe all characteristics of teachers. hence, university professors and teachers not only are responsible for educating students through teaching skills, but also impact students’ thoughts and lifestyle through their moral characters and personality and play an important role in the educating future generations.