Accreditation and curriculum documents including nutrition
| Type of document | Stage of medical education | Document name | Requirements for nutrition education | Mandated (Yes/No) |
| Accreditation standards | Preregistration | Regulations on Graduate Medical Education19 | Includes three nutrition competencies related to the importance of nutrition in health and disease, nutrition assessment and nutrition intervention, such as the ability to ‘prescribe and safely administer appropriate therapies including nutritional interventions…’ | Yes |
| Guidelines on Minimum Standards for Undergraduate Medical and Dental Education in Nigeria20 | Curriculum content includes principles of human nutrition, healthy diets, disorders of nutrition, nutrition assessment, nutrition therapy and education. Nutrition content integrated across anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, surgery, paediatrics and child health, community heath and primary care and pathology. | Yes | ||
| Accreditation Standards for Basic Medical Education in China21 | The medical school must, in the curriculum, ‘identify and incorporate the contributions of public health sciences’, including nutrition and food hygiene and ‘introduce complementary medicine and their roles’, such as food and food therapies. | Yes | ||
| Postregistration | (Model) Specialty Training Regulations22 | Includes five nutrition competencies related to nutrition assessment, nutrition intervention and counselling and enteral and parenteral nutrition across general medicine (family doctor) and internal medicine specialties. | Yes | |
| Curriculum framework or syllabus | Preregistration | Competency-Based Undergraduate Curriculum for the Indian Medical Graduate26 | Includes one competency related to nutrition intervention and six ‘subject-wise’ learning objectives related to nutrition assessment, management and counselling integrated across general surgery, anaesthesiology, obstetrics/gynaecology and dentistry. | Yes |
| Clinical Training Booklet for ERPM Candidates61 | Includes one ‘specific’ objective related to nutrition assessment and three objectives for paediatrics related to public health nutrition and nutrition management. | No | ||
| Curriculum for Undergraduate Medical Education in Bangladesh31 | Curriculum content includes nutritional disorders and malnutrition, basic concepts of nutrition including nutrition for growth and development, nutrition assessment, nutrition counselling and public health nutrition. Nutrition-specific learning objectives are integrated across subjects including physiology, biochemistry, pathology, community medicine, health education and paediatrics. | Yes | ||
| Recommendations for Clinical Skills Curricula for Undergraduate Medical Education30 | Recommendations for mental and physical examination skills include assessment of weight, nutrition and hydration status, eating disorder assessment and nutrition management. | No | ||
| Postregistration | Faculty of Public Health and Community Medicine—Training Curriculum for Postgraduate Fellowship in Public Health and Community Medicine23 | Curriculum content includes principles of nutrition, food hygiene, nutrition problems in developing nations, nutrition across the lifespan, maternal nutrition, food security, the role of the health sector in nutritional programmes, diets and non-communicable diseases and methods of clinical and epidemiological nutrition assessment. | Yes | |
| Faculty of Family Medicine—Curriculum and Syllabus for the Residency Training Programme Towards the Fellowship in Family Medicine24 | Curriculum content includes nutritional value of common foods, nutritional and immunological properties of human breast milk, infant feeding, including complementary diet and common nutritional disorders, nutritional factors that affect normal embryogenesis, paediatrics and child health including feeding problems, failure to thrive and malnutrition, community health including principles of human nutrition, breast feeding, supplementation and weaning, adult dietary requirements and nutrition for health promotion and disease prevention. Also includes content in preventive oral health including diet and dental carries. | Yes | ||
| Australian Curriculum Framework for Junior Doctors version 3.125 | Junior doctors are expected to be able to perform NG and feeding tube insertion; obesity, malnutrition and electrolyte disturbances are listed as common clinical problems and conditions. | No | ||
| Curriculum for Australian General Practice 2016—CS16 Core Skills Unit35 | Includes eight competencies related to the role of nutrition in health, dietary counselling, nutrition as a risk factor for disease and nutrition as a treatment option. | No | ||
| Curriculum for General Practice27 | Includes five competencies related to the role of nutrition in health and dietary risk factors, nutritional assessment, nutrition intervention and public health nutrition. | No | ||
| Recommended Curriculum Guidelines for Family Medicine Residents—Nutrition77 | Includes 42 nutrition competencies related to the role of nutrition in health, nutrition assessment, nutrition management, nutrition counselling, the cultural and social value of food, role of nutrition professionals (eg, dietitians), general principles of nutrition (eg, dietary reference intakes), nutrition across the lifespan, malnutrition, disordered eating, nutrition supplements, food allergies and intolerances, public health nutrition and nutrition monitoring. | No | ||
| The Foundation Programme Curriculum 201632 | Contains nine descriptors related to the role of nutrition in health and disease, nutrition assessment, multidisciplinary nutrition care, nutrition intervention in regard to weight loss or weight gain and public health nutrition. | Yes | ||
| Competency framework or outcomes | Preregistration | National Academic Reference Standards (NARS)—Medicine36 | Stipulates the medical graduate be able to ‘discuss the role of nutrition and physical activity in health’ and conduct anthropometric measurements and assessment of nutritional status as fundamental physical examination skills. | Yes |
| Developing a Framework of Competencies for Medical Graduate Outcomes—Final Report34 | Includes two competencies related to nutritional management and social determinants of Indigenous health including nutrition. | No | ||
| Learning Outcomes/Competences for Undergraduate Medical Education in Europe: The Tuning Project (Medicine)19 | Lists ‘lifestyle, diet and nutrition’ under public health knowledge outcomes. | No | ||
| Outcomes for Graduates 201838 | Includes five outcomes related to the role of nutrition in health and dietary counselling. | Yes | ||
| The Scottish Doctor—Learning Outcomes for the Medical Undergraduate in Scotland: A Foundation for Competent and Reflective Practitioners39 | Includes one learning outcome related to the role of nutrition as therapy. | No | ||
| Postregistration | Guidelines for Competency-Based Postgraduate Training Programme for MD in Community Medicine78 | Includes five competencies and 10 learning objectives related to the role of nutrition in health and disease, nutrition assessment, nutrition management and public health and community nutrition. | Yes | |
| Defining Competence for the Purposes of Certification by the College of Family Physicians of Canada: The Evaluation Objectives in Family Medicine40 | Includes objectives related to multidisciplinary nutrition care, nutrition management including weight gain/weight loss, eating disorders, hyperlipidaemia, diabetes and insulin resistance and hypertension and nutrition counselling. | Yes | ||
| Order SCO/3122/2006, of 20 September, Approving and Publishing the Training Programme for the Specialty of Endocrinology and Nutrition37 | Lists competencies of the specialty which include malnutrition, eating disorders, overweight and obesity and ethical and legal aspects of clinical practice in nutrition. | Yes | ||
| Assessment or examination content | Preregistration | Licence to Practise Medicine for Doctors41 | Examination content for each section of the state board medical examination is outlined and includes ‘applied physiology including nutrition’ and ‘basics of nutrition’. | Yes |
| US Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Content Outline42 | Examination content includes normal growth and development (eg, weight), nutrition across the lifespan, malnutrition, nutrition deficiencies, hydration status and enteral/parenteral nutrition. | Yes |
ERPM, Examination for Registration to Practise Medicine; NG, nasogastric.