Student-led hub for nutrition in medical education hosts national conference

Nutritank was set-up after Bristol Medical School students, Iain Broadley and Ally Jaffee, learnt some medical students are receiving as little as eight hours of compulsory nutrition training out of the five or six years at medical school. Faced with rising levels of chronic disease, mainly related to poor diet and lifestyle, Nutritank has founded more than 20 medical school societies across the UK. The campaign is now feeding into the NHS long-term plan.

This weekend’s conference, aimed at medical students, junior doctors and healthcare professionals, will provide some crucial aspects of nutritional knowledge, not currently taught within medical training, and a workshop to practice its clinical application.

The aim of the event is for people to be better equipped with communication tools that can be put into practice immediately. These new tools could help patients manage their chronic disease through better dietary behaviours and self-care.

Iain Broadley, Bristol Medical School student and one of the co-founders of Nutritank, said: “Our aim for this conference is for delegates to leave feeling inspired and equipped with new or improved knowledge and skills that they can put into practice at clinical placement on the Monday morning. We hope it will also give them greater confidence to give dietary advice and promote behaviour change for chronic health diseases.

“The conference acts as a blueprint to show other educational institutions an example of how this type of education could be delivered within a medical school setting. If a small group of medical students can organise an educational event like this, imagine the impact that could be made if many medical schools started to educate their students in nutritional theory and how to have dietary consultations with their patients.”

High blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease are some of the UK’s major chronic health conditions that are associated with mortality and disability. With many of these conditions, the first line management is to offer patients diet and lifestyle advice. However, doctors and medical students can feel ill-equipped to give such advice.

Nutritank was set-up to make a change to the healthcare system by ensuring that there is greater nutrition and lifestyle medicine education within medical training, to give doctors another tool in their toolbox.

The organisation, through its think tank wants each UK-based medical school to commit to increasing nutrition and lifestyle education within their medical school programmes.

Since Nutritank was founded the organisation has inspired a network of medical students nationwide. They have become regional Nutritank ambassadors and have established their own Nutritank branch at their medical school. There are 33 UK medical schools in the UK and, in under two years, there are now Nutritank medical student ambassadors at 20 medical school with 15 medical schools that have established Nutritank branches.

The ‘Food, nutrition and health in medical education’ conference will take place on Saturday 7 March from 8.30 am to 4.30 pm at the Royal Society of Medicine, 1 Wimpole St, Marylebone, London, W1G 0AE.