Introduction: Medical education is one of the most costly areas of higher education. Accurate cost estimation is essential for evidence-based resource planning and policymaking. This study aimed to review existing evidence on the costs of general medicine education in Iran and estimate its cost for the year 2022.
Methods: This was a two-stage narrative review. In the first stage, both Persian and English sources were searched across databases including Scopus, PubMed, Google Scholar, and Magiran, as well as official reports from the Ministry of Health. Reported cost types and amounts were extracted and recorded in Excel and EndNote. In the second stage, costs were adjusted based on official inflation rates from the Central Bank, and estimates were calculated for one academic year and the full seven-year program.
Findings: No national-level study estimating the full cost of general medicine education in Iran was identified. Five studies from six medical universities reported that the average cost of training a general practitioner in 2022 was 14.5 billion IRR (±5 billion IRR) for the seven-year program. Smaller universities had, on average, higher per-student costs than larger ones. A separate systematic review estimated the annual cost per student at over 24 billion IRR.
Conclusion: The lack of unified national estimates hinders precise financial planning. Given the high and rising costs, national-level studies using national health accounts are urgently needed to guide budget allocation and policy design.