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The Trump administration has pushed medical schools to spend more time teaching nutrition education to future doctors, and three local medical schools have since signed on to a national program called Advancing Nutrition Education.
The Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University and Cooper Medical School at Rowan University pledged to spend at least 40 hours teaching medical students about nutrition. Around the country, 73 schools have signed on to this program so far, out of more than 200 medical schools.
In a recent statement announcing which schools signed on, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said “poor diets are the primary driver of America’s chronic disease epidemic” and that he wants doctors to help patients eat better, to help prevent future illness.
Cooper Medical School already spends more than 40 hours teaching students about nutrition, but will look for ways to update their curriculum, said Sangita Phadtare, professor of biomedical sciences and assistant dean.
“We are always evolving our curriculum to better prepare our students to meet the needs of their future patients,” she said. “There’s a lot of evidence-based literature, which is published on this topic, which shows that nutrition is paramount when you are thinking about preventing chronic diseases.”
As an example, she pointed to an experience she had while participating in the school’s community outreach work in Camden, where she learned that local diabetes patients weren’t sure how to read nutrition labels to buy food that fits their diets. The school will add case studies where medical students learn how to help patients read food labels and explain concepts like recommended dietary allowances, which refer to how much of a nutrient most healthy people need per day.