Nutrition education in core medical curricula: a call to action from tomorrow's doctors

Xie, Jessica Ying-Yi; Abramovich, Natalia; Burridge, Juliet; Jaffee, Ally; Broadley, Iain

doi:10.7861/fhj.2020-0207

Cited by 12 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…However, this requires commitment from curriculum designers to support their staff and organise its delivery and evaluation 34 . Progress has been made by some UK medical schools including University College London Medical School, which has included a culinary medicine course within its core curriculum involving culinary skills training, case‐based discussions and motivational interviewing role play 35 …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…34 Progress has been made by some UK medical schools including University College London Medical School, which has included a culinary medicine course within its core curriculum involving culinary skills training, case-based discussions and motivational interviewing role play. 35 Most interventions included non-medical professionals as instructors (n = 11); however, only four were explicit in utilising IPL. 19,21,24,27 The latest BEME report on the effects of IPL found that it improves the effectiveness of educational interventions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evaluating nutrition education interventions for medical students: A rapid review

Patel

Kassam

2021

J Human Nutrition Diet

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Background: Unhealthy diets account for 20% of all deaths globally. Most medical schools do not sufficiently teach their students the clinical application of nutrition science. Evaluating the efficacy of nutrition education interventions is therefore important for their widespread implementation. Methods: A rapid review of the literature published between 2015 and 2020 was conducted to identify nutrition education interventions delivered to undergraduate medical students. The modified Kirkpatrick hierarchy score was used to evaluate the outcome measures. Study characteristics and outcomes were charted and discussed using narrative synthesis. Included studies were appraised using the MERSQI criteria. Results: Fifteen nutrition education interventions met the inclusion criteria. Twelve were from the USA and most were optional rather than compulsory. Interventions involved a mixture of methods including cooking sessions, lectures, and student-led programs. The content covered was variable and the median duration was 11 h (range 90 min to 75 h). The modified Kirkpatrick scores varied and the median MERSQI score was 12.8/18. No studies reported the use of national or standardised guidance to inform the learning objectives of the interventions. Conclusions: The interventions reviewed are heterogenous in their nature and outcomes. This review highlights the advantages of utilising interprofessional learning, focusing on student's personal health behaviours and harnessing novel teaching methods such as hands-on cooking. Using national guidance to develop learning outcomes will help to standardise the content taught. Future studies may aim to use validated assessment tools and investigate the long-term impacts on delivery of care and patient outcomes.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating nutrition education interventions for medical students: A rapid review

Patel

Kassam

2021

J Human Nutrition Diet

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show abstract

“… 52 Often nutrition may be included as cocurricular or extracurricular activities, such as student-selected components, elective courses, research projects or external opportunities through student society-led groups such as Nutritank. 53 Currently, medical doctors report rarely including nutrition in clinical care, with various cited reasons including time and confidence. 29 In part this is likely due to a lack of nutrition education in their own training.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting nutrition education on the table: development of a curriculum to meet future doctors’ needs

Jones¹,

Macaninch²,

Mellor

et al. 2022

BMJNPH

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COVID-19 has further exacerbated trends of widening health inequalities in the UK. Shockingly, the number of years of life lived in general good health differs by over 18 years between the most and least deprived areas of England. Poor diets and obesity are established major risk factors for chronic cardiometabolic diseases and cancer, as well as severe COVID-19. For doctors to provide the best care to their patients, there is an urgent need to improve nutrition education in undergraduate medical school training. With this imperative, the Association for Nutrition established the Inter-Professional Working Group on Medical Education (AfN IPG) to develop a new, modern undergraduate nutrition curriculum for medical doctors. The AfN IPG brought together expertise from nutrition, dietetic and medical professionals, representing the National Health Service, royal colleges, medical schools and universities, government public health departments, learned societies, medical students and nutrition educators. The curriculum was developed with the key objective of being implementable through integration with the current undergraduate training of medical doctors. Through an iterative and transparent consultative process, 13 key nutritional competencies, to be achieved through mastery of 11 graduation fundamentals, were established. The curriculum to facilitate the achievement of these key competencies is divided into eight topic areas, each underpinned by a learning objective statement and teaching points detailing the knowledge and skills development required. The teaching points can be achieved through clinical teaching and a combination of facilitated learning activities and practical skills acquisition. Therefore, the nutrition curriculum enables mastery of these nutritional competencies in a way that will complement and strengthen medical students’ achievement of the General Medical Council Outcomes for Graduates. As nutrition is an integrative science, the AfN IPG recommends the curriculum is incorporated into initial undergraduate medical studies before specialist training. This will enable our future doctors to recognise how nutrition is related to multiple aspects of their training, from physiological systems to patient-centred care, and acquire a broad, inclusive understanding of health and disease. In addition, it will facilitate medical schools to embed nutrition learning opportunities within the core medical training, without the need to add in a large number of new components to an already crowded programme or with additional burden to teaching staff. The undergraduate nutrition curriculum for medical doctors is designed to support medical schools to create future doctors who will understand and recognise the role of nutrition in health. Moreover, it will equip front-line staff to feel empowered to raise nutrition-related issues with their patients as a fundamental part of enhanced care and to appropriately refer on for nutrition support with a registered nutritionist (RNutr)/registered associate nutritionist (ANutr) or a registered dietitian (RD) where this is likely to be beneficial.

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“…The place of nutrition in medical curricula has been reported as being peripheral (52) . Often nutrition may be included as co-curricular or extracurricular activities, such as student selected components, elective courses, research projects or external opportunities through student society-led groups such as Nutritank (53) . Currently, medical doctors report rarely including nutrition in clinical care with various cited reasons including time and confidence (29) .…”

Section: Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting nutrition education on the table: development of a curriculum to meet future doctors’ needs

Jones¹,

Macaninch²,

Mellor³

et al. 2022

Br J Nutr

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COVID-19 has further exacerbated trends of widening health inequalities in the UK. Shockingly, the number of years of life lived in general good health differs by over 18 years between the most and least deprived areas of England. Poor diets and obesity are established major risk factors for chronic cardiometabolic diseases and cancer, as well as severe COVID-19. For doctors to provide the best care to their patients, there is an urgent need to improve nutrition education in undergraduate medical school training. With this imperative, the Association for Nutrition established an Interprofessional Working Group on Medical Education (AfN IPG) to develop a new, modern undergraduate nutrition curriculum for medical doctors. The AfN IPG brought together expertise from nutrition, dietetic and medical professionals, representing the National Health Service (NHS), royal colleges, medical schools and universities, government public health departments, learned societies, medical students, and nutrition educators. The curriculum was developed with the key objective of being implementable through integration with the current undergraduate training of medical doctors. Through an iterative and transparent consultative process, thirteen key nutritional competencies, to be achieved through mastery of eleven graduation fundamentals, were established. The curriculum to facilitate the achievement of these key competencies is divided into eight topic areas, each underpinned by a learning objective statement and teaching points detailing the knowledge and skills development required. The teaching points can be achieved through clinical teaching and a combination of facilitated learning activities and practical skill acquisition. Therefore, the nutrition curriculum enables mastery of these nutritional competencies in a way that will complement and strengthen medical students’ achievement of the General Medical Council (GMC) Outcome for Graduates. As nutrition is an integrative science, the AfN IPG recommends that the curriculum is incorporated into initial undergraduate medical studies before specialist training. This will enable our future doctors to recognise how nutrition is related to multiple aspects of their training, from physiological systems to patient-centred care, and acquire a broad, inclusive understanding of health and disease. In addition, it will facilitate medical schools to embed nutrition learning opportunities within the core medical training, without the need to add in a large number of new components to an already crowded programme or with additional burden for teaching staff. The undergraduate nutrition curriculum for medical doctors is designed to support medical schools to create future doctors who will understand and recognise the role of nutrition in health. Moreover, it will equip frontline staff to feel empowered to raise nutrition-related issues with their patients as a fundamental part of enhanced care and to appropriately refer on for nutrition support with a registered associate nutritionist/registered nutritionist (ANutr/RNutr) or registered dietitian (RD) where this is likely to be beneficial.

show abstract

Nutrition education in core medical curricula: a call to action from tomorrow's doctors

Cited by 12 publications

References 9 publications

Evaluating nutrition education interventions for medical students: A rapid review

Evaluating nutrition education interventions for medical students: A rapid review

Putting nutrition education on the table: development of a curriculum to meet future doctors’ needs

Putting nutrition education on the table: development of a curriculum to meet future doctors’ needs

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