D0638 - Food Is Medicine: A Novel Educational Intervention to Improve Nutritional Competency in Graduate Medical Education

James S. Love, MD, Anna M. Lipowska, MD
University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL

Introduction: Nutrition plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of many chronic conditions, and thus it is essential that physicians and trainees possess a strong knowledge base of key nutritional concepts. This is especially relevant to gastroenterologists, who care for patients at high risk for developing nutritional abnormalities due to complications of their gastrointestinal diseases. However, physicians receive minimal nutritional instruction throughout their medical training due to curricular and time constraints and often feel unprepared to effectively counsel patients on key aspects of nutrition. This study aimed to evaluate resident physicians’ attitudes toward nutrition and to improve competency in nutritional counseling using a novel educational intervention.

Methods: We implemented a novel nutrition training intervention, aimed at senior internal medicine and internal medicine-pediatrics residents. A scripted presentation was developed on fundamental nutritional concepts and evidence-based nutritional considerations on topics deemed highest priority by the American Society for Clinical Nutrition Committee on Medical/Dental School and Residency Nutrition Education. Resident physicians were surveyed using an abbreviated version of a validated nutrition survey and questionnaire evaluating attitudes on nutrition and objective nutritional competence before and after receiving the presentation. Comparison of pre- and post-intervention scores was made by two-sample t-test.

Results: Among the 39 resident physicians who completed the survey, 85% believed physicians are not adequately trained to counsel patients on nutrition, and 95% expressed the desire to improve their competency in nutrition. Mean scores of objective nutritional competence were significantly improved after administration of the nutritional intervention (63.6% ±11.8 vs 72.2% ±11.5; p=0.017, CI -3.29 to -0.34), as was subjective confidence in counseling patients on all surveyed nutritional concepts (table 1).

Discussion: Our study suggests that resident physicians value nutritional education and desire to improve their knowledge of nutrition, but the majority are not satisfied with the current quality of nutrition training. Our novel educational intervention is a simple, efficient method of improving objective nutritional competency among resident physicians that can be easily implemented while respecting time constraints associated with graduate medical training.



Disclosures:


James S. Love, MD, Anna M. Lipowska, MD. D0638 - Food Is Medicine: A Novel Educational Intervention to Improve Nutritional Competency in Graduate Medical Education, ACG 2022 Annual Scientific Meeting Abstracts. Charlotte, NC: American College of Gastroenterology.