Nutrition education in U.S. medical schools: latest update of a national survey

Abstract

Purpose: To quantify the number of required hours of nutrition education at U.S. medical schools and the types of courses in which the instruction was offered, and to compare these results with results from previous surveys.

Method: The authors distributed to all 127 accredited U.S. medical schools (that were matriculating students at the time of this study) a two-page online survey devised by the Nutrition in Medicine Project at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. From August 2008 through July 2009, the authors asked their contacts, most of whom were nutrition educators, to report the nutrition contact hours that were required for their medical students and whether those actual hours of nutrition education occurred in a designated nutrition course, within another course, or during clinical rotations.

Results: Respondents from 109 (86%) of the targeted medical schools completed some part of the survey. Most schools (103/109) required some form of nutrition education. Of the 105 schools answering questions about courses and contact hours, only 26 (25%) required a dedicated nutrition course; in 2004, 32 (30%) of 106 schools did. Overall, medical students received 19.6 contact hours of nutrition instruction during their medical school careers (range: 0-70 hours); the average in 2004 was 22.3 hours. Only 28 (27%) of the 105 schools met the minimum 25 required hours set by the National Academy of Sciences; in 2004, 40 (38%) of 104 schools did so.

Conclusions: The amount of nutrition education that medical students receive continues to be inadequate.

Figure 1

Distribution of the total hours of required nutrition instruction at U.S. medical schools. Representatives from 109 U.S. medical schools responded to the 2008–2009 Nutrition in Medicine survey (105 schools provided data in response to this question; 4 schools did not). The graph compares the number of schools meeting the recommended minimum of 25 hours of required nutrition education (white bars) with the number of schools providing less than the minimum number of required hours (black bars). The number of schools at each level of required nutrition instruction is indicated above each bar.

Figure 2

Distribution of the required nutrition contact hours (i.e., the actual number of hours of nutrition education) among the various types of medical school courses. Representatives from 109 U.S. medical schools responded to the 2008–2009 Nutrition in Medicine survey (100 schools provided data in response to this question; 9 schools did not). The chart shows the distribution of required nutrition instruction throughout medical school curricula, whether in a designated nutrition course (20%) or integrated into other courses or learning environments (80%).