MedicalText

A Doctor’s Nutrition Training

“Essentially zero.” That’s the answer a physician gave in an interview when asked how much nutrition he received in medical school. The lack of substantive training continued all through his internal medicine residency and specialty training. His expertise? Cardiology. What’s worse is that he said that nothing has changed since.

The interview with Dr. Stephen Devries was recently published in JAMA. He goes on to talk about how he was well-trained to deal with cardiac events when they happened. His frustration came with his inability to do much to help his patients. They would return with the same serious cardiac problems. Why? Because nothing changed in their lifestyle to help prevent reoccurrence. They didn’t learn anything because he didn’t teach them anything about how to do that.

I’m going to talk more about this interview, but here’s a challenge for you. The next time you have a doctor’s appointment, whether general practitioner or specialists, ask them what type of nutrition training they had when they were in medical school or in their residency. It will be interesting to find out their answers.

Reminder to all Insiders: the monthly Conference Call is tomorrow night. If you’re not an Insider yet, there’s time to join before the call.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet
Reference: JAMA Online. 4/11/2018.