Re: Medical schools should be prioritising nutrition and lifestyle education
As a dietitian I was interested to read this article and completely agree with the authors that medical students should have more nutrition education to enable them to become more effective at giving lifestyle advice.
However, where I disagree with the authors is where they say ‘dietary interventions are considered to be outside of the evidence base, unscientifically ‘fluffy’, and the domain of dietitians rather than doctors.
It might interest the authors to know that dietitians will only give advice that has an evidence base and are the only qualified health professionals that assess, diagnose and treat dietary and nutritional problems. They are the only nutrition professionals to be regulated by law and like Doctors are governed by an ethical code to ensure that they always work to the highest standard. Dietary interventions given by a dietitian are therefore most definitely not outside of the evidence base or unscientifically ‘fluffy’.
Dietitians too follow NICE guidance and NICE guidance for T2 diabetes states that patients should be provided with individualised and ongoing nutritional advice from a healthcare professional with specific expertise and competencies in nutrition. Unfortunately many patients are given inaccurate dietary advice from healthcare professionals, including Doctors, who are not trained in nutrition and who are more swayed by media reports and hype rather than the evidence base.
I completely agree that medical students should be trained in nutrition but it seems another area that is lacking in medical training is understanding and respecting other healthcare professionals roles.
Until medical students do receive more nutrition training I suggest they refer their patients to dietitians who can provide their patients with individualised evidenced based dietary advice.
Competing interests:
No competing interests
17 January 2018
Mary Hall
Dietitian
Nutrition and Dietetic Department, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Trust
Rapid Response:
Re: Medical schools should be prioritising nutrition and lifestyle education
As a dietitian I was interested to read this article and completely agree with the authors that medical students should have more nutrition education to enable them to become more effective at giving lifestyle advice.
However, where I disagree with the authors is where they say ‘dietary interventions are considered to be outside of the evidence base, unscientifically ‘fluffy’, and the domain of dietitians rather than doctors.
It might interest the authors to know that dietitians will only give advice that has an evidence base and are the only qualified health professionals that assess, diagnose and treat dietary and nutritional problems. They are the only nutrition professionals to be regulated by law and like Doctors are governed by an ethical code to ensure that they always work to the highest standard. Dietary interventions given by a dietitian are therefore most definitely not outside of the evidence base or unscientifically ‘fluffy’.
Dietitians too follow NICE guidance and NICE guidance for T2 diabetes states that patients should be provided with individualised and ongoing nutritional advice from a healthcare professional with specific expertise and competencies in nutrition. Unfortunately many patients are given inaccurate dietary advice from healthcare professionals, including Doctors, who are not trained in nutrition and who are more swayed by media reports and hype rather than the evidence base.
I completely agree that medical students should be trained in nutrition but it seems another area that is lacking in medical training is understanding and respecting other healthcare professionals roles.
Until medical students do receive more nutrition training I suggest they refer their patients to dietitians who can provide their patients with individualised evidenced based dietary advice.
Competing interests: No competing interests