New teaching concepts for nutritional medicine in medical curricula

Neuruppin, 19 July 2024

Selina Böttcher (MHB student and dietician) and Can Gero Leineweber (MHB Clinician Scientist, assistant physician / ukrb department of internal medicine) presented the innovative concepts of the MHB Nutrition Skills Lab for education in nutritional medicine in the medical curriculum at the Nutrition Congress 2024 in Leipzig. This is the first German Nutrition Skills Lab to be sponsored by the foundation “Stiftung für Innovation in der Hochschullehre” over a two-year period, to finance a training kitchen on the premises of the university hospital Ruppin-Brandenburg (ukrb) and staff positions.

“Health is sustainable” was the general motto of the entire event with a focus on the implications of nutrition on planetary health. Presentations and discussions addressed current research findings as well as interdisciplinary and innovative approaches on nutrition and nutritional therapy in various fields of medicine.

Selina Böttcher and Can Gero Leineweber illustrated the active involvement of the MHB Nutrition Skills Lab in the further training in nutritional medicine for future doctors within and beyond the MHB medical curriculum. They underlined the positive effects of the lab on participants’ expertise, specifically in terms of correlations between disorders, pertinent nutritional aspects, treatment options and preventive strategies.

Late in 2022, Selina Böttcher and Can Gero Leineweber were founding members of JDGEM, the young umbrella society for nutritional medicine. The opportunity to present the project and its advances to the scientific community at the congress was therefore of particular importance to the young MHB researchers.

Publication procedures for a model curriculum as a basis for medical studies started recently, and first data have already been published (DOI: 10.1016/j.clnesp.2023.06.043). The study reveals that for about 90 % of medical students nationwide, actual contact with the topic of nutritional medicine comprises less than twelve hours in total. An objective account is difficult as no uniform Curriculum Mapping has been established in Germany to date. The National Academy of Sciences stipulated a minimum of 25 contact hours for the topic of nutrition in medical education.

The congress "Ernährung 2024" was organized as a joint event and combined several independent meetings: the 23rd joint meeting of the German, Austrian and Swiss Societies of Nutritional Medicine, the annual meeting 2024 of the professional organization of ecotrophologists, and the 25th annual meeting of the federal association of nutritionists.

Contact:
Can Gero Leineweber and Selina Böttcher
E-Mail: ernaehrung@mhb-fontane.de