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Development and Evaluation of a Nutrition-Centered Lifestyle Medicine Curriculum for Physician Assistant Students
- Source :
- Medical Science Educator
- Publication Year :
- 2021
-
Abstract
- Background US medical schools are increasingly integrating lifestyle medicine competencies into their academic programs. Yet, physician assistant (PA) academic programs have been slower to respond. Methods We developed, implemented, and evaluated a nutrition-centered lifestyle medicine curriculum for 2nd-year PA students (n = 24). The 4-week hybrid, 2-credit hour course activities aligned with the American College of Lifestyle Medicine competencies for primary care providers and reinforced four of the Accreditation Standards for PA Education. We combined didactic lectures with weekly hands-on cooking modules from the “Health meets Food” courseware for medical students. We employed a pre-post evaluation design including a comparison group of 2nd-year PA students in a separate program. We assessed changes in personal nutrition behaviors and knowledge and confidence for counseling in nutrition, exercise/physical activity, weight, smoking, and alcohol, using the modified 5A’s framework (assess, advise, agree, assist, and arrange) for lifestyle counseling. Results Students receiving the intervention demonstrated significantly higher gains in both knowledge and confidence for the 5A’s of nutrition counseling compared to the control group. Self-reported knowledge and confidence for the 5A’s of counseling for the other lifestyle behaviors similarly improved among the intervention group compared to the control group, but to a lesser extent. Conclusion A nutrition-centered lifestyle medicine course can demonstrate PA academic program adherence to accreditation standards, while also introducing students to nutrition and lifestyle medicine competencies. Hands-on experiences that reinforce didactic instruction may maximize student knowledge and self-efficacy for implementing lifestyle medicine into their practice.
- Subjects :
- Medical education
020205 medical informatics
Design evaluation
education
Medical nutrition education
Medicine (miscellaneous)
Culinary medicine
02 engineering and technology
Primary care
Education
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Intervention (counseling)
0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering
Lifestyle medicine
030212 general & internal medicine
Psychology
Nutrition counseling
Curriculum
Academic program
Physician assistant students
Accreditation
Original Research
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 21568650
- Volume :
- 29
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Medical science educator
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....1fb419aec982af37dccb23928a1755bd