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Nutrition plays an important role in health promotion and disease prevention and treatment across the lifespan. Physicians and other healthcare professionals are expected to counsel patients about nutrition, but recent surveys report minimal to no improvements in medical nutrition education in US medical schools. A workshop sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute addressed this gap in knowledge by convening experts in clinical and academic health professional schools. Representatives from the National Board of Medical Examiners, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, and the American Society for Nutrition provided relevant presentations. Reported is an overview of lessons learned from nutrition education efforts in medical schools and health professional schools including interprofessional domains and competency-based nutrition education. Proposed is a framework for coordinating activities of various entities using a public–private partnership platform. Recommendations for nutrition research and accreditation are provided.

Residents in family practice have considerable deficiencies in ECG interpretation skills. Further studies are needed to determine effective ECG teaching curricula.

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The overall goal of our Nutrition Academic Award (NAA) medical nutrition program at Mercer University School of Medicine is to develop, implement and evaluate a medical education curriculum in nutrition and other aspects of cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention and patient management with emphasis on the training of primary care physicians for medically underserved populations. The curriculum is 1) vertically integrated throughout all 4 y of undergraduate medical education, including basic science, clinical skills, community science and clinical clerkships as well as residency training; 2) horizontally integrated to include allied healthcare training in dietetics, nursing, exercise physiology and public health; and 3) designed as transportable modules adaptable to the curricula of other medical schools. The specific aims of our program are 1) to enhance our existing basic science problem-based Biomedical Problems Program with respect to CVD prevention through development of additional curriculum in nutrition/diet/exercise and at-risk subpopulations; 2) to integrate into our Clinical Skills Program objectives for medical history taking, conducting patient exams, diet/lifestyle counseling and referrals to appropriate allied healthcare professionals that are specific to CVD prevention; 3) to enhance CVD components in the Community Science population-based medicine curriculum, stressing the health-field concept model, community needs assessment, evidence-based medicine and primary care issues in rural and medically underserved populations; 4) to enhance the CVD prevention and patient management component in existing 3rd- and 4th-y clinical clerkships with respect to nutrition/diet/exercise and socioeconomic issues, behavior modification and networking with allied health professionals; and 5) to integrate a nutrition/behavior change component into Graduate Residency Training in CVD prevention.

Diversity standards in medical education accreditation do not guarantee diversity but do stimulate schools' activities to recruit and retain diverse students and faculty. The Liaison Committee on Medical Education's (LCME's) accreditation standard addressing medical school diversity neither mandates which categories of diversity medical schools must use nor defines quantitative outcomes they should achieve. Rather, each medical school is required to (1) identify diversity categories that motivate its mission and reflect its environment and (2) use those categories to implement programs to promote diverse representation of students and faculty. When the LCME assesses each medical school's compliance with these requirements, it considers single point-in-time diversity numbers, trends in student and faculty diversity, and outcomes of programs implemented by the school to promote diversity in the categories it identifies as key to its mission.

This study examined how often physicians in Georgia diagnose and treat Lyme disease as well as the criteria they use to reach a diagnosis of Lyme disease. A survey was sent to 1,331 family physicians in Georgia concerning how many cases of Lyme disease the physicians diagnosed, and the criteria used to make the diagnosis, during the preceding 12 months. Of 710 responses, 167 physicians treated 316 cases of Lyme disease without a firm diagnosis. In addition, 125 physicians diagnosed 262 cases of Lyme disease, 130 without serologic testing and 132 with serologic testing. Family Physicians in Georgia diagnose Lyme disease at a rate 40 times greater than the surveillance case rate reported in Georgia.

Accreditation aims to ensure that generally-accepted standards of educational program quality are being met. The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), the accrediting body for medical education programs leading to the MD degree, has a process to address circumstances at medical schools arising from acute emergency situations. This involves consultation with faculty and administration at the affected school and collection of data related to compliance with accreditation standards through written reports and on-site visits. The actions of both the medical schools in New Orleans and the LCME following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 illustrate this process. While the need to respond to requests for information from an accrediting body places additional burdens on a medical school's faculty and administration during an emergency, such oversight also ensures that the medical education program continues to meet standards. This provides assurance of educational quality to school personnel and students, as well as to the school's publics. Accreditation agencies should consider how their standards and processes support a timely and flexible response to disaster situations that occur at accredited schools.