A group of nutrition and education experts, including physicians at Dallas-based UT Southeastern Medical Center, has issued a proposal for medical schools to incorporate competencies on healthy eating counseling into their curriculum.
Medical education programs in the U.S. currently lack uniform training on nutrition counseling. To address this gap, an expert panel published a consensus statement in JAMA Network Open, outlining 36 competencies to incorporate into physician training programs. These range from providing culturally sensitive nutrition and food recommendations to patients, to distinguishing between food allergies and food intolerances.
"Our goal was to create standardization, and this was the first national effort pairing nutrition experts and educational leaders to define what medical students and residents need to know about the impact of nutrition on health," Jaclyn Albin, MD, co-author on the consensus statement and professor of pediatrics and internal medicine at UT Southeastern, said in a news release.
"Fundamentally, the rate of chronic disease is so inextricably linked to eating patterns that if we are not teaching physicians properly, we cannot help people in a holistic or meaningful way. This is an opportunity to make people well, rather than simply managing illness."
In 2017, UT Southwestern launched an experimental course meant to enhance students' understanding of foundational nutrition principles and practical schools. It remains one of the most popular elective courses at the medical school, according to the news release.
Across the country, medical schools are revising their curriculum to better prepare physicians to provide holistic care and transition away from episodic care delivery.