Medical Education Column, Creating a High-Yield Guide to Lifestyle Medicine for Medical Students and Healthcare Professionals

Am J Lifestyle Med. 2023 Jul 12;18(3):332-334. doi: 10.1177/15598276231188644. eCollection 2024 May-Jun.

Abstract

Despite their inclusion as first-line therapy for many chronic diseases, lifestyle interventions are often de-emphasized in medical education and fail to make it into the repertoire of non-lifestyle medicine trained clinicians. We sought to address this gap in medical education by creating a concise pocket guide to lifestyle medicine that lends itself to use in the face-to-face clinical setting. With input from lifestyle medicine experts, the guide was created by medical students for medical students as well as other healthcare professionals for use in a variety of clinical settings. In this article we share our process of creating the guide, initial feedback, and future directions.

Keywords: behavior; counseling; handbook; lifestyle; lifestyle medicine; medicine; pocket; pocket guide.