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Post‐graduate education of dietitians and their potential role in medical education
Author(s) -
Robertson A.,
James W. P. T.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
journal of human nutrition and dietetics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.951
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1365-277X
pISSN - 0952-3871
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-277x.1991.tb00115.x
Subject(s) - medicine , nutritionist , dilemma , medical education , medical prescription , medical nutrition therapy , family medicine , nursing , pathology , philosophy , epistemology
One dilemma of teaching nutrition to medical students includes the problem of translating nutritional science into practical therapy. Medical clinical nutritionists and dietitians need to join forces to solve this problem. For the purposes of this paper, a clinical nutritionist is defined as a medically qualified doctor with post‐graduate qualifications in nutrition (e.g. M.D or Ph.D) followed by a significant number of years (e.g. 10) in post‐doctoral nutritional research; a dietitian is someone who qualifies with BSc. in nutrition and/or dietetics followed by or including 6 months clinical training leading to state registration in dietetics (S.R.D.). The question is how can these two disciplines integrate and develop their skills? One mechanism for linking these two professional groups is in the training of medical students. In addition, a joint approach could ensure that nutritional prescription and dietetic therapy are more readily accepted and implemented within patient care.