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 2-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). Conclusion: 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. Table 1. - Basic participant demographics as well as observed measures of subjective confidence and objective competence in nutritional counseling Baseline Participant Demographics Pre-Intervention Survey Completion Post-intervention Survey Completion PGY2 22 12 PGY3 14 4 PGY4 2 1 Male 29 12 Female 10 6 Objective Competence Scores Pre-Intervention (n=39) Post-intervention (n=18) P-Value 63.60% 72.20% 0.0169 Measurement of Subjective Confidence in Nutritional Counseling Nutritional Topic Pre-Intervention (n=39) Post-Intervention (n=18) P-Value Food constituents 2.85 4.12 < 0.0001 Body mass index 3.08 4.06 0.0055 Basic metabolism 3.46 4.67 0.0007 Vitamins 3.00 4.17 0.0003 Omega-3/6 fats 3.11 3.72 0.0409 Dietary cholesterol 3.55 4.28 0.0103 Type 2 diabetes 3.90 4.50 0.0033 Osteoporosis 3.26 4.00 0.0032 HIV 2.08 3.89 < 0.0001 Objective competence was determined utilizing 22 questions from a validated nutrition assessment survey, and scores are reflected as percentage correct. Subjective confidence was determined using a validated questionnaire assessing comfort level and knowledge of nutritional interventions in commonly-encountered diseases in primary care, and was scored on a scale of 1-5 from least to most comforTable, respectively. HIV - human immunodeficiency virus. PGY – post-graduate year.