Assessing the Nutrition Curriculum at Boston University School of Medicine

Abstract

BackgroundFor the past several years, there has been a national charge to increase inter‐professional nutrition education in the medical school curricula. The Nutrition Vertical Integration Group (VIG) at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) has facilitated the integration of medical nutrition in the 4‐year medical school curriculum. However, the quality and quantity of instruction has been difficult to evaluate.Objectives1) To determine how many of the nutrition knowledge objectives set forth by the Nutrition VIG at BUSM are taught and tested on in the 4‐year curriculum. 2) To determine course directors’ opinions on the desirability of each nutrition knowledge objective in the curriculum.MethodsThe Nutrition VIG at BUSM developed a list of 80 medical student nutrition knowledge objectives to be taught in the 4‐year curriculum. Seventy‐seven of objectives were based off of the 146 nutrition learning knowledge objectives for medical students set forth by the National Academic Award (NAA) Program's Nutrition Curriculum Guide for Training Physicians and 3 original objectives on food security were also added. The Nutrition VIG conducted a survey of BUSM course directors to determine which objectives were currently being taught and on which students were being tested. The survey also assessed course directors’ opinions toward the desirability to integrate nutrition topics into the BUSM curriculum. The survey was administered during pre‐clerkship and clerkship subcommittee meetings and was available online for those who were not able to complete it during meetings.ResultsEighteen of 26 (69%) of the course directors responded to the survey. They reported teaching 63 of the 80 (78%) objectives but were only testing students on 48 of 80 (60%) objectives. Fourteen of the 18 (78%) course directors answered questions about the desirability of the objectives in the curriculum. For each of the 80 objectives, at least 92% of respondents reported that the objective was either a desired or necessary part of the curriculum.DiscussionThe results of this survey show that that the majority of BUSM nutrition knowledge objectives were covered in the BUSM curriculum. These findings are surprising, especially given that BUSM students indicate that they do not feel prepared to counsel their patients about nutrition. This gap raises question to the effectiveness of these nutrition knowledge objectives in the curriculum.ConclusionFurther studies are needed to determine whether current nutrition objectives improve medical student preparedness to assess and counsel patients about nutrition.Support or Funding InformationWith support from the Allen Foundation and New Balance Foundation