Introduction

Suez Canal University was established in 1976 as a community oriented university to spearhead the development efforts of Suez Canal zone (Port Said, Ismailia and Suez) and Sinai, following the 1973 war.

The Faculty of Medicine was established concomitantly, but started to admit undergraduates' students in 1981 (postgraduate family medicine studies started one year earlier).

The undergraduate curriculum is a community-based, problem-based one. Student research projects form a significant component of the curriculum. Each class has to conduct a project going all through the academic year. The final class students (year six) have to conduct individual graduation projects. In addition, smaller scale research projects are conducted in relation to other educational activities (occupational health clerkships, elective clerkships, etc.)

Research projects are part and parcel of the educational curriculum, not additional or supplementary activities. So, the objectives of research projects conform to those of the corresponding educational phase:

Phase I
Dealing with normal (whether individual or community)
Research topics could be those bearing on: breast feeding, anthropometrics of children, health beliefs, psychosocial phenomena related to adolescence, etc

Phase II
Dealing with diagnosis (whether individual or community)
Research will usually be a multiscreening for prevalent diseases: diabetes, hypertension, helminthiasis, etc

Phase III
Dealing with intervention (individual or community)
Research will assume an intervention trial shape, e.g. attempt to reduce prevalence of bilharziasis in a rural community.

Research projects have got educational, research and service objectives.

The educational objectives bear on: knowledge, skills and attitudes. The student gains knowledge on such areas as research methods, demography, sociology and anthropology, biostatistics as well as the topics directly related to the problem under study (this will go through the whole spectrum from cell biology to clinical medicine). The student acquires skills in
such areas like: conducting census, team building, computer and data management skills, laboratory skills, etc. He/she also acquires positive attitudes like respect of local culture, sympathy with the least deprived sections of the community, perseverance, etc.

As for research and services aspects, students' projects, as research areas, have served to provide useful simple solutions to some problems in the area. They have also provided Ideas for further research at the post-graduate level or for the school projects.

In collaboration with health service providers in the area, they helped them to school some difficulties in delivering service.

For whole class, whole year projects, the topic for research is selected by the students guided by scientific criteria. Students divide themselves into action groups for: design, logistics, data management, etc.

The students are responsible for performing all the previous actions under guidance of the faculty members who are supervising these projects. Students may seek consultation of other faculty members who are specialists in the field of the research project or they may consult governmental or community representatives according to their needs.

The project is evaluated as a whole and the contribution of each student is individually evaluated through submitted reports and presentations prepared by the students. These presentations are attended by supervisors, other faculty members, community representatives, ministry of health personnel, beneficiaries and students, where discussion of the research topic is taking place.
 

Objective of the project
This project aims at documenting the FOM/SCU student research projects (1981- currently), through collecting, categorizing, abstracting and storing on compact discs as well as displaying on the internet the available research projects in the form of a searchable data base.