DESCRIPTION: (Applicant's Description) The purpose of this revised application is to build and sustain a curriculum-driven new initiative "Cancer and Nutrition: A Generalist Education Model" which capitalizes on the already established foundations in nutrition education at the University of Nevada School of Medicine (UNSOM). Specifically, this proposal will provide the needed support to create, implement and evaluate a new program to teach prevention of disease with emphasis on the role of nutrition and cancer to medical students. Seven new initiatives are outlined in the specific aims to support the UNSOM in its new focus toward the training of primary care physicians in the generalist education setting with increased emphasis on active, problem-based learning. These include: 1) a Cancer Curriculum Committee (CCC) which will be responsible to plan, initiate, coordinate, implement, and evaluate cancer education and nutrition integration throughout the new curriculum; 2) cancer and nutrition education in the current and new basic science courses (including the Medical Nutrition Course); 3) integration of principles of disease prevention into two new basic science courses, "Introduction to Patient Care" and "Clinical Problem Solving;" 4) cancer and nutrition integration in the "Generalist Clerkship" and Preceptorships; 5) faculty development programs for basic scientists, clinicians, and other health professionals; 6) three summer cancer and nutrition related research fellowships for medical students completing their freshman year; and 7) a "Special Qualifications in Nutrition (SQIN) Program" for medical students who elect and complete a four-year comprehensive and specialized nutrition curriculum. This revised application addresses the reviewers' concerns by: 1) increasing the involvement and enhancing the roles of the MD faculty; 2) strengthening the link between the basic and clinical sciences; and 3) updating the proposed project with the ongoing implementation of the Generalist Initiative. It is anticipated that materials, methods and collaborative efforts generated from this project will create and build and sustain the cancer and nutrition expertise needed for integration into the generalist education model. This proposal requests support at a critical and most opportune juncture as strategic curricular changes are being implemented with recent six year funding of the Generalist Initiative (GI) by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to the UNSOM to meet local and national education and health care reform directives. The transportability and exportability of the model to other sites will first be tested and refined in our own state (Las Vegas) as an integrated extension of our program. At the termination of this award, a significant number of established physicians (preceptors), allied health professionals, office staff, residents, medical students and colleagues will be better trained in nutrition and cancer as it applies to disease prevention as well as intervention and primary care in a generalist educational model.
NIH ExPorter
NIH ExPorter