Jennifer Trilk, M.D.
Associate Professor at University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville, Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson (US)
Talk 1: Mechanisms of nutrition in the development, prevention and reversal of chronic disease
The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes that nutrition-related chronic diseases, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis and some cancers, are leading causes of global morbidity, mortality and high health care costs. Medical professionals are in a position to stem the tide of chronic disease incidence and prevalence in their patients; however, most medical professionals are not adequately trained in the mechanistic roles that nutrition plays in chronic disease, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that supports the efficacy and effectiveness of healthy nutrition.
The WHO states that the right investment in nutrition could save 3.7 million lives by 2025, which could start with medical professional education. This talk will describe the evidence-based mechanisms of nutrition in the development, prevention, and reversal of type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, hypertension, heart disease, osteoporosis, breast cancer, colon cancer, and other chronic diseases, with the goal of improving the audiences’ medical knowledge for optimum patient care.
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Talk 2: Lifestyle medicine at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville: the classroom-clinic-community model
While scientific evidence demonstrates conclusive associations between unhealthy lifestyle behaviors and increased morbidity and mortality related to non-communicable chronic diseases (NCDs), most physicians are not formally taught the root causes of NCDs nor how to counsel patients regarding their lifestyle behaviors for disease prevention and treatment. Since its inception in 2012, the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville (UofSCSOMG) has designed, developed, and implemented an innovative, formalized Lifestyle Medicine classroom-clinic-community model to provide required undergraduate medical student training with a graduating program-level goal to improve population health.
Students matriculating to UofSCSOMG are introduced to the Lifestyle Medicine curriculum as a required component of undergraduate medical education which all students receive across the four years of the program. While in their biomedical science modules, medical students in in their M1 and M2 years are educated in detail and at the intracellular level in the biochemical and physiological mechanisms how lifestyle behaviors either plays a role in the prevention of, or pathophysiology of chronic disease. Medical students in the M3 and M4 years continue education in Lifestyle Medicine in an applied clinical knowledge and skills format with patients, and are also educated about the innovative clinic-to-community referral program called “Exercise is Medicine Greenville®” (EIMG®). In partnership with the YMCA of Greenville and Prisma Health, EIMG® delivers a 12-week, community-based, clinical exercise and lifestyle behavioral intervention for prevention and treatment of NCDs including obesity, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and Type 2 diabetes. Patients in the departments of Family Medicine and Internal Medicine are counseled by medical students and referred through the EPIC electronic health record to the program.
The process of developing the classroom-clinic-community model was guided by the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Core Entrustable Professional Activities (required for graduates entering residency) and aimed to satisfy the Quadruple Aim components of better outcomes, lower cost, improved patient experience, and improved physician experience. This talk will describe the approach used to design and implement the model and offers guidance to other undergraduate medical schools that may wish to implement Lifestyle Medicine training to improve physicians’ medical knowledge and clinical skills for optimum health care.