Introduction:
Dietary interventions and nutrition care improve patient outcomes and reduce healthcare costs. Despite status as a necessary topic in medical school education, many U.S. medical schools do not adequately prepare future physicians for everyday nutritional challenges in clinical practice. There is immense research behind the necessity of nutrition education but little concerning the methods of implementing this change. The purpose of this work was to review the current innovations of nutrition curriculum in the literature and discuss future directions for our medical school.
Method:
A systematic search of scientific literature databases was performed to examine existing literature about the current state of nutrition curriculum and identify current methods of improving nutrition curriculum. A database search of the undergraduate GW SMHS curricula helped us map where nutrition is currently taught and look into ways to expand and integrate it.
Results:
Shortcomings in sufficient nutrition education result from lack of proficient faculty, low funding, and lack of established core curricula with guidelines and protocols. Additionally, international medical schools have recognized their deficiency in nutrition education compared to U.S. standards. U.S. institutions making headway in new nutrition education programs include The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Boston University School of Medicine, Southern Illinois School of Medicine, University of Nevada School of Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Mercer University School of Medicine, and various institutions introducing “culinary medicine”. Successful nutrition integration should be spread longitudinally across all years with an emphasis on active-learning techniques over rote memorization. Creativity, chief support, an established taskforce, trained faculty, and evaluation methods are essential tools to enhance medical curriculum. Looking at GW SMHS curricula, nutrition is concentrated in the Pre-Clinical years with very little emphasis in the Clinical years, a common trend across most medical schools. Medical students may be more confident incorporating nutrition into patient care if nutrition were spread proportionally across all years to combine basic foundations with clinical application.
Conclusion:
Expanding nutrition curriculum at The George Washington University School of Medicine could involve utilizing the Nutrition in Medicine project developed by The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill or bringing in internationally renowned chef José Andrés to expand on his previous culinary courses and incorporate nutrition fundamentals into the medical curriculum. Future directions need to evaluate existing programs, current initiatives, and their effectiveness in order to be able to improve programs across the continuum
