Abstract

Promising Approach

Osteopathic Healthcare Delivery, Trainee Readiness?

Challenge/issue

Malnutrition conservatively affects approximately 30% of hospitalized patients. Consequences of malnutrition may include longer hospital length of stay, greater risk of hospital readmission, and higher overall cost of care. Benefits of nutrition support may include improved wound healing, reduction in complications, length of stay, and mortality. There are few published materials for teaching this topic to osteopathic medical students.

Objective

To create and assess an introductory lesson on nutrition support for osteopathic medical students within the OMS-II gastroenterology course. 

Approach

A pharmacy faculty member and a nutrition faculty member collaborated on an introductory level nutrition-support focused session for second year osteopathic medical students. We created a slide set and video (Panopto) recording with pre and post-quiz questions embedded within the video. The presentation includes a practice patient case, description of selected nutrition support formulas, and a discussion of the roles of members of the interdisciplinary care team in providing nutrition support for a patient in the inpatient setting. The post-quiz also includes questions on the effectiveness of the educational materials and opportunity for students to submit subjective feedback.

Results

This is the first iteration of this module. Data from surveys will be analyzed and presented. Course faculty will update the materials in accordance with student feedback. Due to the lack of established curricula for introducing nutrition support to medical students, these findings will constitute an important contribution to medical education literature.