NAA Curriculum Overview

The Tufts University School of Medicine nutrition education pathway integrates nutrition knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors throughout the students’ medical education.

YEAR ONE NUTRITION; The Nutrition and Medicine Course

The required Nutrition and Medicine Course (27 hours of lectures and small groups) introduces students to:

• Functions of macro and micronutrients (6 lectures)
• The role of nutrition throughout the life cycle (pregnancy, lactation, infants/children, and elderly)
• Clinical application of nutrition in the prevention and treatment of chronic disease (cardiovascular, hypertension, diabetes, and cancer)

Also in Year One, nutrition is integrated with the following courses:

• Biochemistry (protein, lipid/cholesterol metabolism; vitamins/minerals in metabolic pathways)
• Interviewing (nutrition assessment and diet history taking skills)

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YEAR TWO NUTRITION

Nutrition integrates with the Principles of Clinical Medicine course, giving the students a chance to apply nutrition knowledge learned in Year One.

Students:

• Interact with elderly patients in multiple nursing home/clinical settings
  
• Complete a Directed Geriatric Assessment that includes a medical, nutritional, and social history.

Also in Year Two, nutrition is integrated with the Physical Diagnosis course (identification of nutritional manifestations).

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YEAR THREE NUTRITION

Students in their Internal Medicine and Family Medicine Clerkships receive the following nutrition program, funded by a grant from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), National Institutes of Health (NIH). Called the Nutrition Academic Award (NAA), the grant is used at Tufts to provide nutrition education and resources to students in their clinical years, residents and attending physicians.

Internal Medicine Clerkship
(at Tufts Medical Center, Bay State Medical Center, and Lahey Clinic)

• Four-Part Seminar Series
  1. Nutrition and Cardiovascular Disease
     
  2. Nutrition and Obesity
     
  3. Nutrition Assessment Strategies
     
  4. Nutrition Intervention/Counseling
  
  
• Standardized Patient Experience
  • Students practice using their knowledge of nutrition and cardiovascular disease along with nutrition assessment, interviewing, and behavioral counseling skills with a “live” cardiovascular disease case.
    

Family Medicine Clerkship
(at Tufts Medical Center)

• Nutrition and Weight Control
  
  • 1 ½ hours covering the nutritional and behavioral components of weight loss
    
• Standardized Patient Experience
  
  • Students practice using their knowledge of nutrition and weight control along with nutrition assessment, interviewing, and behavioral counseling skills with a “live” obesity case.
    

Surgery Clerkship
(at Tufts Medical Center)

• Nutrition and the Surgical Patient
  
  • 1 hour discussion on nutrition issues pre- and post- surgery
    

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YEAR FOUR NUTRITION

• Clinical Elective
  
  • A two or four week elective, "Nutritional Support of the Hospitalized Patient," offers students a chance to join the Adult Nutrition Support Consult Service at Tufts Medical Center. As a member of the Nutrition Support team, students learn to perform nutritional assessments and develop nutritional plans for critically ill patients.
    

RESIDENTS

Funded by the Nutrition Academic Award (NAA) from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), a series of seminars on current topics of interest in nutrition is offered each year to residents at several of the Tufts University School of Medicine teaching hospitals. Nutrition resources for in- and outpatients, available on the hospital intranet and palm pilots, are being developed.

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