Participation in an Exercise Education Rotation affects Medical Students Opinions Towards a Physician’s Role in Physical Activity Recommendations

Abstract

Physical activity is key for prevention of most chronic disease. In response, a global initiative called Exercise is Medicine was launched to encourage physicians to treat physical activity participation as a vital sign. However, medical students may not receive the necessary training which may inhibit the future physician’s likeliness to assess or recommend physical activity participation. PURPOSE: To determine if a five day exercise education rotation affects medical student’s opinion regarding a physician’s role in recommending physical activity. METHODS: Third year medical students (n=169) completed a mandatory exercise education rotation as part of general primary care clerkship. This rotation included included basic fitness assessment and consultation, one-hour observation of a clinical supervised exercise program, exercise prescription education for special populations, explanation of the Exercise is Medicine Initiative and mandatory attendance to five group exercise classes. All exercise activities were led by an ACSM certified exercise physiologist at a University based fitness facility. The medical students completed an 8-item Likert scale pre-post survey (1 to 4, strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree, respectively) to assess their level of agreement with statements about a physician’s role in exercise prescription and personal fitness (Table 1). A paired t-test was used to compare the pre and post scores for each individual item. Significance was set at p < .05. Results: Table 1.Table: No title available.Conclusion: The findings demonstrate that a five-day exercise education rotation favorably impacts medical student’s opinion regarding a physician’s role in exercise consultation with patients. More importantly, the most significant increase in agreement was observed in the students’ agreement that a physician should consider physical activity levels as a vital sign, consistent with the Exercise is Medicine initiative.