2002-10-10

Stanford Nutrition Project Courses

The Nutrition Project at SUMMIT has developed and tested a preclinical web-based nutrition course and is currently developing a clinical web-based nutrition course as part of the Curriculum Web Project. The audience for these courses is primarily medical students at Stanford University School of Medicine. The preclinical portion was approved as a required course to be completed by medical students before they reach clinical study. The secondary audience includes Stanford house staff, students in the Stanford/Foothill College Primary Care Associate training program, and physician CME.

The overall goal of the course for medical students is to develop a basic understanding of the scientific principles of nutrition, the role of nutrition intervention in patient care, and the role of nutrition in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and other chronic diseases in the general population and in high risk populations. Areas of special focus to be included in the course content are counseling techniques for health behavior change, culture and gender differences in attitude toward diet and dietary practices, and techniques for accessing and evaluating nutrition information resources.

Students access the course material by logging into the course web site with a username and password. They are presented with the unit listing and some basic instructions regarding the material and the quizzes. Students can navigate through the material linearly as presented or they can use the hyperlinks to move through the material in a more exploratory way. Each unit of material can be completed in a minimum of 30 minutes of computer contact time. However, students can take much more time if they choose to explore the links into other course material and additional resources that are provided. Access to the unit quiz is available at any time. This allows them to test their knowledge during the presentation of the material at their own pace.

The interdisciplinary team that created the preclinical course and are currently developing the clinical course include subject experts in nutrition, dietetics, and biochemistry, physicians, an education specialist in testing and evaluation, medical students with nutrition backgrounds, research librarians, a content editor, and a web designer.

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