How can we motivate medical sciences students to learn health system management? A report of the first national Olympiad on managerial reasoning and decision-making

Although health system management is one of the main roles of health care providers, medical sciences students are not properly trained for it. The first national scientific Olympiad for managerial reasoning and problem solving was designed to motivate students for acquiring managerial knowledge and skills, improve their reasoning and problem solving capabilities and propagate team working in students in an excitingly competitive and friendly atmosphere. This paper aims to report our experiences in designing and administering this scientific Olympiad. METHODS: A model for the Olympiad was designed in three phases: building up a framework for designing the exam questions and determining the topics, setting the exam questions and administering it, and finally judging. In summer 2009, the first national Olympiad for the students of medical sciences on reasoning and decision making in health system management was held in Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. RESULTS: After 19 months, a framework for the exam questions was built up and the themes of the Olympiad were decided to be health policy and health economics. The exam was run in two phases of individual and group competition.106 students participated in the event. 88.5% of participants uttered the skills needed for this exam were not taught at the university and 61.6% believed the skills were useful for their professional future and 65.4% tended to encourage their friends to participate in the next Olympiads. CONCLUSIONS: Based on participants’ feedbacks, it seems that holding a national festival like an Olympiad can motivate medical sciences students to go beyond routine studying and probably can fill some educational gaps in health system education. Of course, this Olympiad was the first experience in this field and further studies and amendments is necessary to improve it in future.