First-Year Medical Students Complete Clinical Nutrition Seminar

The discipline of family medicine recognizes the need for increased nutrition education for medical students and encourages medical schools to emphasize nutrition education. Programs to implement nutritional education face obstacles such as limited financial resources, limited qualified faculty, and often a lack of physician role models who advocate the importance of nutrition in medical schools.

In efforts to overcome these obstacles, the Department of Family Medicine has taken the opportunity to provide a nutrition seminar in the required Introduction to Clinical Medicine course each spring. The Department has overcome financial resource obstacles by using volunteer faculty and utilizing some of the excellent family physician role models to teach nutrition.

The Department goals in nutrition education are to give physicians the background and expertise they need to recognize the role of nutrition in health care and to implement appropriate nutritional strategies in promoting wellness and treatment of chronic disease. Three essential areas of this project are health promotion and maintenance, nutritional requirements through the life cycle, and the relation of nutrition to acute and chronic diseases.

This year’s Clinical Nutrition Seminar was held January 7,14, and 21, l998. Topics included nutrition and its impact on health, the importance of nutrition in medical care, women’s health issues, diabetes, gestational diabetes, lipids, cardiovascular disease and hypertension, nutrition for children, weight control, practical aspects of nutrition and the medical student, and sports nutrition.

Students were given the opportunity to do a complete nutritional assessment of their dietary habits over a three-day period. They were then provided individualized instruction and assistance in the use of a computerized nutritional assessment program. They entered the results of their three-day food diary and were able to analyze the macro and micro nutrients they had consumed. They also used a computerized fitness program to assess how many calories they burned during various physical activities based on an individualized program for their age, weight, height, and body mass index.

The results of the class-wide activity were provided as feedback to the students on the last day of the seminar and indicated the nutritional habits of the class as a whole. As students entered their foods and determined the percent of calories they obtained from protein, fat, and carbohydrates, and the levels of nutrients they consumed in relation to the recommended dietary allowances, many were surprised by what they were actually eating.

One nutritional problem addressed was the low amount of dietary fiber the average American consumes per day. Throughout the seminar, students were provided tasty snacks high in fiber. These included wheat bran and oat bran muffins, apples, and oranges. This provided the opportunity to show that some snacks are healthier than others.

The faculty for the seminar included Mary Auch, M.S., RD, LN, consultant dietitian for Dakota Medical Center in Vermillion; David A. Brechtelsbauer, M.D., associate professor Department of Family Medicine; Gail Johannsen, M.S., RD, LN, director of AP4 Dietetics Program, Department of Family Medicine; Angie Novak, nutrition AP4 trainee; Elizabeth Rosenbaum, RD, LN, clinical dietitian, Sioux Valley Hospital; Marsha Schofield, M.S., RD, LN, clinical nutrition manager, Food and Nutrition Services, McKennan Hospital; and Melissa Townsend, nutrition AP4 trainee.

The format of a nutrition seminar is more relaxing for students and gives them an opportunity to interact with the physician, dietitian, and nutritionist faculty. It also provides the opportunity to learn the resources available to them in the various communities in South Dakota.

Meeting Begins the Process of State Rural Health Association Assessment

Thirty-five participants representing a variety of rural health interests attended the January 28, 1998, planning meeting to begin the process of assessing the need for a state rural health association in South Dakota. Together with the South Dakota Department of Health, the Section of Rural Health, USDSM, is responding to a National Rural Health Association (NRHA) Initiative which provides small planning stipends for states to assess the need for state rural health associations. The Initiative is driven by NRHA's goal of increasing advocacy for rural health issues through a grassroots, state-driven approach.

The goal of the January 28 meeting was to get a basic environmental scan regarding the need for advocacy and coordination on rural health issues and to begin to define those groups and organizations in South Dakota with rural health interests. Meeting participants were asked to define individuals and groups to participate in a steering committee which will conduct a needs assessment.

Margaret Sumption, M.S.E.D., of Sumption & Wyland Consulting, facilitated the meeting and will conduct further work with participants to define a steering committee. It is also anticipated that Sumption & Wyland will direct the steering committee in the assessment process.

If you are interested in the needs assessment, serving on a steering committee, or can recommend someone to serve on a steering committee, contact Lisa Nelson at 605/357-1508 or via e-mail at lnelson@sundance.usd.edu.