RESUMEN
The field of Lifestyle Medicine (LM) is growing rapidly as individuals and communities seek real solutions to the hardship of chronic disease. Providers across various medical specialties and allied health professions are gaining certification in this field, and yet are struggling with implementation. Time constraints, concern about reimbursement, and lack of clinical experience in counseling patients are often cited as obstacles. This article will address these issues and demonstrate how LM can be successfully practiced in a standard primary care setting. Active participation in the local community is essential. Office visits must be prepared for efficiently, and encounters should focus on teaching simple concepts to patients. At-home learning activities can then be used to build on these concepts. Referral to health coaches and outside programs are helpful options as well. Equipping providers with practice tools to promote lifestyle change will improve satisfaction for patients and providers alike and is an important step toward advancing the field of LM.
RESUMEN
While scientific evidence demonstrates conclusive associations between unhealthy lifestyle behaviors and increased morbidity and mortality related to noncommunicable chronic diseases (NCDs), most physicians are not formally taught the root causes of NCDs nor how to counsel patients regarding their lifestyle behaviors for disease prevention and treatment. Since its inception in 2012, the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville has designed, developed, and implemented an innovative, formalized lifestyle medicine curriculum to provide required undergraduate medical student training with a graduating program-level goal to "Deliver total health care using lifestyle medicine to prevent and treat morbidity and mortality related to chronic diseases." The process was guided by the Association of American Medical Colleges' Core Entrustable Professional Activities (required for graduates entering residency) and aimed to satisfy the Quadruple Aim components of better outcomes, lower cost, improved patient experience, and improved physician experience. Four essential instructional design phases, Analysis, Design, Development, and Evaluation, were used as systematic steps to create and deploy the curriculum. This article describes the evidence-based approach used and offers guidance to other undergraduate medical schools that may wish to implement lifestyle medicine training to improve physicians' medical knowledge and clinical skills for optimum health care.