Adequacy of Medical and Surgical Residents' Nutritional Education

Background and Objectives: Over the past years, nutritional and life style modifications have become an important adjunct to medical therapy especially with the widespread obesity epidemic. Furthermore, diseases related to obesity such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, hypertension, hyperlipidemia and cancers are the leading causes of death worldwide. The doctors, considered by their patients, as the reference for nutritional advice, may not have received the necessary education to assume this important role. Several studies, from the U.S., Canada, Taiwan, the U.K and Iran, among others, showed poor knowledge about nutrition among physicians in training. The objective of this study is to test the knowledge of medical and surgical residents from different medical schools in Lebanon to perform dietary counseling. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2015 among medical and surgical residents randomly selected from all seven medical schools in Lebanon. A standardized, published English language questionnaire was tested in a pilot assessment then adopted; it covered personal status, self-esteem, nutritional practice and nutritional knowledge. The survey was conducted in writing and included 20 standard nutrition knowledge questions. Results: 398 residents from all 7 medical schools were enrolled. All 3 years of residency were represented. 65% were Internal Medicine residents and 35% surgical residents. 72.1% reported receiving no nutritional education during their training. Although 89.33% of the residents reported giving nutritional advice regularly, and 77% reported a high confidence about their knowledge, the average score on the test was 9.73 over 20. A high number of medical residents reported encouraging their patients to consult a Registered Dietitian. Most scores did not exceed the average and the difference among the medical schools was not significant. Conclusion: This study underscores the great need to establish nutritional education as a core discipline in the medical education in Lebanon given the central role it plays in today's clinical practice. Our results are alarming and should be taken into consideration to improve medical education and clinical practice. Future interventional studies would be of great value in assessing and setting reasonable goals for nutritional education targeting everyone on the medical team.