New York Medical College is a private medical school with an annual graduating class of 200 students. Nutrition was first introduced into the curriculum by the Principal Investigator in 1971, and New York Medical College became one of the first medical schools to have nutrition as a required course. Nutrition teaching has been centered in the department of Community and Preventive Medicine and members of other clinical departments with specialty in Nutrition hold joint appointments. The nutrition teaching staff contains 14 members of the American Institute of Nutrition and the American Society for Clinical Nutrition including 4 who are certified by the American Board of Nutrition. Prior to applying for this grant, approval was obtained from the curriculum committee and the dean to expand the program to include the lectures presented in this application.
The aim of this proposal is to develop a new nutrition curriculum focusing on the prevention of cancer.
The aim will be fulfilled by presenting a series of lectures on this subject to second year medical students by qualified staff members; supplementing this with guest lectures featuring authorities in this field; providing electives for senior students stressing nutrition in prevention of cancer in the departments of Community and Preventive Medicine, Pediatrics, Medicine and Surgery; and presenting a new course in Nutrition and cancer in the graduate school to be required by those taking one of the electives but open also to medical and graduate students and health professionals. The curriculum committee and the dean have allowed us to present 4 of the lectures of the proposed curriculum to the second year students during the Fall of 1989 and these were well received. Space in the second year curriculum is being reserved for the program if funding of this grant is obtained.
