Clinical nutrition: Inadequate teaching in medical schools

Background and Aim: The teaching of Clinical Nutrition (CN) is frequently n eglected in Medical Schools, though many official institutions strongly rec ommend its incorporation in their curricula. This work aimed to assess CN k nowledge among final-year medical students and final-year dietology diploma students. Methods and Results: We compared the performances of final-year Medical Sch ool students who did and who did not take the CN course and final-yens diet ology students in a computer-based multiple choice question examination rel ated to core CN competencies that primary-care physicians and dieticians sh ould know and be able to put into practice. The medical students who did no r take the CN course correctly answered significantly fewer questions compa red with those who did and the dietology students (both p < 0.001). There w as also a difference in the percentages of who passed the test: students wh o did not take the course: those 18%; those who did: 77%; dietology student s: 76% (p < 0.001). Conclusions: There are numerous barriers to the incorporation of nutrition in Medical School curricula. The medical school students may have achieved poorer results because dietology students followed nutrition education prog rams Eater in their curriculum. Our Medical School has therefore included C N education as part of its internal medicine course since 1998. (C) 2001, M edical Press.