Dokuz Eylul University Graduate School of Health Sciences: Does It Meet The Basic Standards of ORPHEUS/AMSE/WFME? A Self-Evaluation

Tuğba Yardimci¹, Canan Demir Barutcu², Gül Güner Akdoğan², İbrahim Astarcıoğlu² 
(1. Department of Internal Medicine Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey;
2. Graduate School of Health Sciences, Dokuz Eylül University, Turkey)

Abstract: The mission of doctoral education in Dokuz Eylül University (DEU) is to train independent researchers, capable of transferring their knowledge and skills to different environments, globally. DEU is reknown, in Turkey and abroad, for its reforms in doctoral education. The university has made intensive efforts to collaborate with international organizations involving doctoral education. For evaluation, the self-evaluation questionnaire was used to test compliance to the Standards for PhD programmes and the level of a PhD degree in biomedicine and health sciences prepared by ORPHEUS, the Association of Medical Schools in Europe (AMSE), and the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME). It is observed that the Graduate school meets the majority of these standards. The graduate school is strong in the definition and transparency of the main procedures of PhD training, the guidelines of which are developed by the Higher Education Commission (YOK) act in Ankara. Some of the points which need amendment and/or further progress, on the basis of this evaluation are; the supervisor should not be a formal member of the thesis jury, the number of credited formal courses need to be reduced and the equivalence of the thesis to 3–4 in extenso international papers should be more clearly defined.

Key words: PhD, education, Turkey, Orpheus, basic standards