My daughter who is in med school asked me a question today.

Question:

What kind of nutrition education do you think medical students need and are currently lacking?


My perspective:

I. Knowledge of a concise set of (BWM) Basic Wellness Messages.  Trouble for patients is that there are too many messages and they don’t know what to focus on; I find often patients gets waylaid by messages (albeit true but unimportant) from special interests.

1. Good posture
2. 2 liter of water per day + for exercises (consult your MD)
3. 400 grams of Non-starchy vegetables (no more than 2 fruits) per day.  —World Health Organization
4. Appropriate exercise
5. BAM (Breath Awareness Meditation)

II. Ability to share the importance of self-management at every clinical encounter in a way that the patient will listen; I find that by understanding what each patient want (or don’t want) in life; I can show them how they can get what they want by focusing of the (BWM) Basic Wellness Messages.  I also find that by redirecting all queries back to the BWM, patient hear the same message again and not become distracted by less important but easier to implement wellness “truth”.

III.  I have been successful in sharing the BWM at nearly every encounter in my clinic or in the ER.  Through repetition, I have discovered the attitude, approach and language that is needed to reach nearly everyone.  The immediate feedback from patient has become uniformly positive.  The long term results has also been encouraging.
For my latest inductee into the “I Have Beaten Type 2 Diabetes Hall of Fame”; his A1C was over 11 on Janumet on Jardiance; since following BWM, his A1C is under 6 off both diabetes drugs.