en Medical Education Medical Education Original Research Original Research <span style="font-size:13pt"><span style="text-justify:kashida"><span style="text-kashida:0%"><span style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif"><span style="font-style:italic"><b><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><span style="font-style:normal">Background: </span></span></b><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><span style="font-style:normal">Economic sanction is a planned action by one or more governments to limit economic, commercial, and/or financial relations to exert pressure on the target country. Information about the impact of sanctions on social capital within Iranian society is scarce. Therefore, this study investigated how an economic crisis affects social capital in medical education.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br> <span style="font-size:13pt"><span style="text-justify:kashida"><span style="text-kashida:0%"><span style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif"><span style="font-style:italic"><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><span style="font-style:normal">&nbsp;&nbsp; <b>Methods: </b>This qualitative study involved conventional content analysis. Faculty members or employees with notable work experience in education in universities of medical sciences constituted the population of this study. Participants were purposefully selected and invited to be interviewed. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were used to collect the data. Eleven interviews were conducted in person, while 2 were conducted remotely via WhatsApp. Data were analyzed using the Graneheim and Lundman method.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br> <span style="font-size:13pt"><span style="text-justify:kashida"><span style="text-kashida:0%"><span style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif"><span style="font-style:italic"><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><span style="font-style:normal">&nbsp;&nbsp; <b>Results:</b> Out of a total of 13 interviews analyzed, 161 initial codes were extracted. After removing similar codes and merging the remaining codes, 17 codes remained. Continuous comparison of these 17 codes led to the emergence of 3 subcategories: (1) Damage to ethics, human dignity, human values, and human principles; (2) Reduction of the genetic resources of intelligence and genius; and (3) Damage to human resources and human infrastructure. Finally, we merged these subcategories into 1 category, which we called Damage to Social Capital.&nbsp; </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br> <span style="font-size:13pt"><span style="text-justify:kashida"><span style="text-kashida:0%"><span style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif"><span style="font-style:italic"><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><span style="font-style:normal">&nbsp;&nbsp; <b>Conclusion:</b> Economic crises or sanctions will unavoidably damage medical science universities&#39; social capital. Creating an ethical charter and using it as the basis for human resource training is advised.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br> &nbsp; Medical education, Economic sanctions, Social capital, Human resources, Ethics 1054 1062 http://mjiri.iums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-8283-2&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Shahram Yazdani Shahram.yazdani@yahoo.com 200319475328460093545 200319475328460093545 No Department of Medical Education, School of Medical Education and Learning Technologies, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Mahour Mellat Parast mahour@ncat.edu 200319475328460093546 200319475328460093546 No Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA Snor Bayazidi snor.bayazidi@gmail.com 200319475328460093547 200319475328460093547 No Department of E-learning in Medical Sciences ,Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Poorandokht Afshari afshari-p@ajums.ac.ir 200319475328460093548 200319475328460093548 Yes Reproductive Health Promotion Research Center, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran