The overall goal of this project is to develop, implement, and evaluate a medical education curriculum in nutrition and other aspects of cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention and patient management with emphasis on the training of primary care physicians for medically underserved populations. The curriculum will be: 1) vertically integrated throughout all four years of undergraduate medical education including basic science, clinical skills, community science, and clinical clerkships as well as residency training; 2) horizontally integrated to include allied health care training in dietetics, nursing, exercise physiology, and public health; and 3) designed as transportable modules adaptable to the curricula of other medical schools.
The specific aims are: 1) to enhance the investigators' existing basic science problem-based Biomedical Problems Program with respect to CVD prevention through development of additional curricula in nutrition/diet/exercise and at- risk subpopulations; 2) to integrate into the Clinical Skills Program objectives for medical history-taking, conducting patient exams, diet/lifestyle counseling, and referrals to appropriate allied healthcare professionals that are specific to CVD prevention; 3) to enhance CVD components in the Community Science population-based medicine curriculum stressing the health-field concept model, community needs assessment, evidence-based medicine, and primary care issues in rural and medically underserved populations; 4) to enhance the CVD prevention and patient management component in existing 3rd and 4th year clinical clerkships with respect to nutrition/diet/exercise and socioeconomic issues, behavior modification and networking with allied health professionals; and 5) to integrate a nutrition/behavior change component into Graduate Residency Training in CVD prevention.
