If you’re waiting for a final scientific word on how nutrition fits into your clinical practice, you will be waiting a very long time. But the truth is, there’s already plenty of scientifically-sound information out there to get you started, said Susan Lord, MD, a family physician, who is director of nutrition programs for the Center for Mind-Body Medicine, Washington, DC.
The real problem, said Dr. Lord, is not lack of data; it is lack of physician exposure to and understanding of nutrition science. Nutrition is given little more than lip service in medical training, and that means doctors interested in the subject face the daunting task of educating themselves. On the CME circuit, it seems far easier to learn the latest cosmetic surgical procedure, or to dose the newest statin than to learn how to give your patients intelligent nutritional guidance.
Dr. Lord, who is also on faculty at Georgetown University School of Medicine, hopes to change that. As course director for an upcoming week-long intensive called “Food as Medicine: Integrating Nutrition into Clinical Practice and Medical Education,” she hopes to provide the medical community with a firm grounding in the basics of nutrition science, and the practical ways it can be applied in a host of specific clinical situations.
“It is hard for many to understand that nutrition can be the very basis of your practice,” Dr. Lord told Holistic Primary Care. The course, slated for June 3–9, in Jackson Hole, WY, is not intended to promote a specific type of diet, or to compare the various “patent” diets capturing the public fancy. Rather, it will lay out the fundamentals of nutrition and metabolism, and then explore ways in which doctors can better work with patients to optimize health through more intelligent eating patterns.
If the proof is in the pudding, then the conference meals—which are included in the registration fee—will be as important as the didactic sessions. “Until you work with diet yourself, there is no way to understand the power of nutrition. Personal experience begets passion,” said Dr. Lord, who designed the conference menu herself.
Dr. Lord’s interest in nutrition began when she was in her 20’s living as a potter and musician in the Berkshire mountains. “I’d had a lot of food sensitivities, which I ultimately dealt with by growing most of my own food for about 20 years. Then, at age 41, I went to medical school.” On completing her family medicine training, she began working with Dr. James Gordon, who is director of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine.
“We get so many calls both from patients and from doctors, who are disillusioned with their inability to treat chronic illnesses, and who think nutritional approaches may help. The grass roots interest in nutrition is tremendous,” she said.
In an effort to address the growing demand, she and Dr. Gordon began working on a curriculum for an elective in nutrition to be given at Georgetown. With funding from the Henry Wallace Foundation, this evolved into a curriculum aimed at teaching medical school and residency faculty how to bring nutrition to the core of medical training. This curriculum will be the backbone of the Food as Medicine course. “It may seem like a luxury to spend a whole week on just one subject, but it is hardly enough time,” Dr. Lord said.
She stressed that tuition scholarships are available, and in keeping with the original mission of trying to integrate nutrition training where it is most needed, the scholarships will be preferentially given to physicians on medical school or residency faculties, and to those practicing in poor, medically-underserved communities. For more information on the Food as Medicine program, contact the Center for Mind-Body Medicine at 202-966-7338, or on the web at: www.cmbm.org.
