Challenges and opportunities in cultivating medical students' competencies: Participatory action research from a hierarchical cultural setting.

The main challenge of fostering student-centered learning revealed in this study was a teacher-centered learning tendency in the medical curriculum. The weighting towards summative assessment and the national educational policy drive the curriculum like a 'domino effect', away from the expected student-centered learning principles. However, using a participative method, students and teachers could identify opportunities and articulate their educational needs, i.e., a partnership-mentorship program, as a significant step toward student-centered learning in this cultural context.