Dietary Education Trend

Physicians appear to be ill equipped to help patients eat healthfully.
In a column in the New York Times (9/17), Pauline W. Chen, MD, writes that while "research has increasingly pointed to a link between the nutritional status of Americans and the chronic diseases that plague them," in general doctors are not "prepared to effectively spearhead or even help" people eat well. To help medical "schools with their nutrition curriculum, the University of North Carolina has offered a series of instruction modules free of charge." Delivered "online, the program, Nutrition in Medicine, is an interactive multimedia series of courses" that "helps address two issues that frequently arise: the relative dearth of faculty in a medical school with appropriate expertise and the lack of time in an already packed course of study." Additionally, the school is "working on online nutrition education programs geared toward practicing physicians."