Laying an Early Foundation: Lifestyle Medicine Pre-Professional Education (LMPP) Member Interest Group.

Just as lifestyle medicine is the necessary foundation for true health care reform, lifestyle medicine competencies should be the foundation for health education. Although lifestyle medicine education may benefit a health professional at any stage in their education or career, evidence-based undergraduate lifestyle medicine education for future health professionals shifts the perspective of health and health care delivery. Educating health preprofessionals in associate, bachelor's, master's, and other preprofessional healthcare training programs is of paramount importance due to the interdisciplinary nature of lifestyle medicine. To accomplish this, American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) members can work collaboratively through committees, projects, and working groups-becoming leadership champions of change. An ACLM Pre-Professional Member Interest Group (LMPP) was created in 2018. LMPP has been working to build a national collaborative effort to amass, create, and distribute resources for educators in this pre-professional arena. Educating college students planning to become professionals outside the medical sphere, for example, lawyers, business people, artists, and engineers, will also benefit the field by introducing the power of nutrition, exercise, sleep, social connection, and stress resiliency during this formative state of career development. Pre-professional educational programs provide learners the opportunity to personally experience the power of lifestyle medicine.

Including Lifestyle Medicine in Medical Education: Rationale for American College of Preventive Medicine/American Medical Association Resolution 959.

Introduced by the American College of Preventive Medicine and released by the American Medical Association House of Delegates in 2017, Resolution 959 (I-17) supports policies and mechanisms that incentivize and/or provide funding for the inclusion of lifestyle medicine education and social determinants of health in undergraduate, graduate and continuing medical education. Resolution 959 was passed to help address the current healthcare costs of lifestyle-related, noncommunicable chronic diseases that exert a devastating economic burden on the U.S. healthcare system. Approximately 86% of $2.9 trillion is spent annually on obesity, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and some cancers, with very poor return on investment for health outcomes. Lifestyle medicine provides an evidence-based solution to the noncommunicable chronic disease epidemic; however, medical education in lifestyle medicine is minimal to nonexistent. This paper provides the case for healthcare innovation to include lifestyle medicine in the prevention and treatment of noncommunicable chronic diseases. Our medical education system recommendation is to provide lifestyle medicine training for prevention and treatment of noncommunicable chronic diseases. Exemplar lifestyle medicine schools are showcased and guidance for reform is highlighted that can be used to aid lifestyle medicine integration across the medical school education continuum. With a transformation of curriculum and development of new policies to support a focus on lifestyle medicine education in medical education across the continuum, a new healthcare model could be successful against noncommunicable chronic diseases and U.S. citizen wellness could become a reality.

Advancing Lifestyle Medicine Education in Undergraduate Medical School Curricula Through the Lifestyle Medicine Education Collaborative (LMEd).

Physicians are uniquely positioned to stem the tide of the world's top lifestyle-related diseases; however, most are not trained to provide effective patient care. The Lifestyle Medicine Education Collaborative (LMEd) has a plan that is a comprehensive and sustainable approach to policies, programs, and initiatives to increase graduating US medical students' knowledge and application of lifestyle medicine. LMEd's strategic plan is to (1) provide high-quality curricular material; (2) solicit support of medical school deans, critical administration, and faculty; (3) influence federal and state policy; (4) develop and conduct assessment; and (5) support medical students as lifestyle medicine champions. Accomplishments to date include (1) collaboration with Association of American Medical Colleges' MedEdPORTAL for the curation of a LM Collection; (2) creation of a network of >350 members, 80 medical schools including 33 hospitals/clinics; 1:1 mentoring sessions >70 medical school faculty/administration; and (4) establishment of a relationship with the National Board of Medical Examiner's Customized Assessment Services to create a subject test in lifestyle medicine. National awareness is being increased through webinars and hosting the first-annual LMEd Summit in October 2016. LMEd strives to alter the health care landscape by enhancing physician competency in lifestyle-related disease and value-based care and affecting the health of populations.

Lifestyle Medicine Education Collaborative (LMEd): "Champions of Change" Medical School Leaders Workshop.

The Lifestyle Medicine Education Collaborative (LMEd) hosted the "Champions of Change" Medical School Leaders workshop at the 2017 American College of Lifestyle Medicine annual conference. Presentations focused on the following: (1) accelerating adoption and implementation of lifestyle medicine (LM) education in medical schools through collaboration and action networks that produce positive results, (2) showcasing medical school champions and their work in LM education leadership, and (3) helping participants create a roadmap for how to engage with LMEd and implement LM education in their own medical school.

Medical students as health coaches: Implementation of a student-initiated Lifestyle Medicine curriculum.

BACKGROUND: By 2020, the World Health Organization predicts that two-thirds of all diseases worldwide will be the result of lifestyle choices. Physicians often do not counsel patients about healthy behaviors, and lack of training has been identified as one of the barriers. Between 2010 and 2014, Hebrew University developed and implemented a 58-h Lifestyle Medicine curriculum spanning five of the 6 years of medical school. Content includes nutrition, exercise, smoking cessation, and behavior change, as well as health coaching practice with friends/relatives (preclinical years) and patients (clinical years). This report describes this development and diffusion process, and it also presents findings related to the level of acceptance of this student-initiated Lifestyle Medicine (LM) curriculum. METHODS: Students completed an online semi-structured questionnaire after the first coaching session (coaching questionnaire) and the last coaching session (follow-up questionnaire). RESULTS: Nine hundred and twenty-three students completed the coaching questionnaire (296 practices were with patients, 627 with friends /relatives); and 784 students completed the follow-up questionnaire (208 practices were with patients, 576 with friends /relatives). They reported overall that health coaching domains included smoking cessation (263 students), nutrition (79), and exercise (117); 464 students reported on combined topics. Students consistently described a high acceptance of the curriculum and their active role in coaching. Further, most students reported that they were eager to address their own health behaviors. CONCLUSIONS: We described the development and acceptance of a student-initiated comprehensive LM curriculum. Students perceived LM as an important component of physicians' professional role and were ready to explore it both as coaches and in their personal lives. Thus, medical school deans might consider developing similar initiatives in order to position medical schools as key players within a preventive strategy in healthcare policy.