

| By Dr. Ronald Hoffman
March is National Nutrition Month. I’ll use this occasion to issue a clarion call for making nutrition a linchpin of medical therapy across ALL specialties. Here’s a rundown of how it could advance the health of diverse patients:
Nevertheless, nutrition training and knowledge among medical professionals remains woefully lacking, according to the latest surveys. It’s not for lack of interest by idealistic young medical students. But by the time they graduate, they’re ground down by overwhelming demands of memorization and fact regurgitation, exhausted by punishing rotations that undermine their personal adherence to balanced lifestyles, and thoroughly indoctrinated in a pharmaceutical paradigm:
“Despite the paucity of nutrition curriculum in medical school, the study found that interest among medical students in nutrition is uniformly high. Previous research has shown that keen interest in nutrition among incoming medical students typically wanes by the time of graduation. It is easy to imagine why. When medical students do not see nutrition substantively incorporated into their curriculum and do not observe clinical mentors incorporating nutritional interventions into their care plans, what else can they conclude but that nutrition is not as important as they had once believed?”
It’s not surprising that medical specialists don’t have the time or bandwidth to become experts in nutrition, except for a few, like myself and colleagues, who have devoted their careers to mastering nutrition science. But, at least, physicians should learn where nutritional approaches are appropriate, and how to make referrals to nutrition experts as part of a team approach:
“ . . . without a solid foundation of clinical nutrition knowledge and skills, physicians worldwide are generally not equipped to even begin to have an informed nutrition conversation with their patients and to fully identify opportunities for referral.”
But medical education is not addressing the need. According to survey data:
“22% of polled physicians recall receiving no nutrition education in medical school. While the majority of physicians recollect receiving some nutrition education in medical school, 35% of those polled said that came in the form of a single lecture or a section of a single lecture. Unfortunately, the situation does not improve during medical residency. Seventy-three percent of those surveyed felt they received minimal or no education during their medical residency necessary for counseling patients on nutrition topics.
And, despite the urgent need, we’re lagging behind our international peers:
“Lack of nutrition education appears to be more prevalent in the Americas, where 58% of physicians had no memory of, or there was a notable absence of, nutrition education in medical school. In Asia and Europe, the absence of any education seemed like less of a problem: only 30% of polled physicians in those continents recalled no medical education on nutrition.”
And after graduation from medical school, things only get worse:
“Lack of nutrition education persists after completion of graduate medical education, where almost half of polled physicians had not received any nutrition continuing medical education. Moreover, physicians were unlikely to be readers or consumers of nutrition education through studies, books, or documentaries post graduation. In fact, 67% of physicians read about nutrition less than once every 3 months.”
The review concludes:
“Without adequate education in training, it is no surprise that most physicians around the world do not feel well equipped to counsel their patients about nutrition.”
As we commemorate Nutrition Month, we need to do better. Is there not an urgent need for training doctors how to harness nutritional modalities, and insist that we place qualified clinical nutritionists on the front lines of EVERY medical specialty?
My professional organization, the American Nutrition Association (ANA) has stated:
“Nutrition should be a core element of our healthcare culture and system, and all health professionals should be equipped and empowered to integrate nutrition into their work.”
To this end, the ANA offers a range of training programs to help acquaint health professionals with the potential for personalized nutrition. Learn more about the educational work of the American Nutrition Association on their website.
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