Nutrition in Medicine

Abstract

Proper nutrition plays a key role in disease prevention and treatment. Many patients understand this link and look to physicians for guidance diet and physical activity. Actual physician practice, however, is often inadequate in addressing the nutrition aspects of diseases such as cancer, obesity, and diabetes. Physicians do not feel comfortable, confident, or adequately prepared to provide nutrition counseling, which may be related to suboptimal knowledge of basic nutrition science facts and understanding of potential nutrition interventions. Historically, nutrition education has been underrepresented at many medical schools and residency programs. Our surveys over a decade show that most medical schools in the United States are still not ensuring adequate nutrition education, and they are not producing graduates with the nutrition competencies required in medical practice. Physicians, residents, and medical students clearly need more training in nutrition assessment and intervention. The Nutrition in Medicine (NIM) project, established to develop and distribute a core nutrition curriculum for medical students, offers a comprehensive online set of courses free of charge to medical schools. The NIM medical school curriculum is widely used in the United States and abroad. A new initiative, Nutrition Education for Practicing Physicians, offers an innovative online medical nutrition education program for residents and other physicians-in-training, but with targeted, practice-based educational units designed to be completed in 15 minutes or less. The NIM project is strengthening medical nutrition practice by providing a free, comprehensive, online nutrition curriculum with clinically relevant, evidence-based medical education for undergraduate and postgraduate learners.

Do final‐year medical students have sufficient prescribing competencies? A systematic literature review

“…A clear definition of competencies is important to steer curricular content – specifically, assessment – and students' approach to learning 90. A lack of agreement on the required competencies of students has also been identified in other areas of medical education – for example, global health 91 and nutritional medicine 92. It was not within the scope of the present review to determine why there is a lack of a consensus.…”

Future Doctors’ Nutrition-Related Knowledge, Attitudes and Self-Efficacy Regarding Nutrition Care in the General Practice Setting: A Cross-Sectional Survey

“…In evaluating the status of nutrition education in the medical curricula, a number of studies in the USA [11][12][13] and other high-income countries [10,14,15] have found it to be inadequate. This has been corroborated by medical doctors reporting inadequate training in nutrition education during medical school, inadequate knowledge and skills in nutrition and feeling less efficacious in their ability to effectively provide nutrition care to patients [10,[16][17][18][19].…”

Medical Training to Achieve Competency in Lifestyle Counseling: An Essential Foundation for Prevention and Treatment of Cardiovascular Diseases and Other Chronic Medical Conditions: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association

“…65 There is no debate that a healthy diet and eating behaviors are central to health and well-being and that health professionals should be cognizant of these facts 66,67 ; however, current evidence suggests that physicians do not feel adequately prepared to assume a prominent role in counseling their patients about good nutrition practices. 42 They indicate that they lack knowledge of nutrition science and the skills needed to apply nutrition interventions.…”

“…The nutrition care process guides clinical practice for registered dietitians and registered dietitian nutritionists and is designed to provide a consistent and systematic approach for critical thinking and decision making to provide optimal patient care. 73 Adams and colleagues 66 previously proposed a detailed list of nutrition competencies for physi- cians and encouraged physicians, registered dietitians, and registered dietitian nutritionists to work collaboratively to implement nutrition care process domains. Essential domains include nutrition assessment, nutritional diagnosis, nutrition intervention, and nutrition monitoring and evaluation.…”

“…66,67 In September 2012, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, in collaboration with the NIH Office of Disease Prevention and the Division of Nutrition Research Coordination, convened a meeting on implementation of nutrition across the continuum of training from medical school through residency, and in the training of other healthcare professionals as well. The objectives of the meeting were to recommend (1) the content and implementation of nutrition and healthy lifestyle education, training, and competency testing and (2) the integration of nutrition education, training, and research to improve population health, patient care, and health outcomes.…”