Lifestyle Medicine Electives: Options for Creating Curricula Within Medical School Training

Lifestyle medicine (LM) offers future generations of clinicians practical tools to effectively prevent, manage and reverse chronic disease. Due to a variety of factors, introduction of such curricula in medical training has been slow. Until LM becomes more standard in medical schools, electives and tracks are an innovative way to introduce curricula in a time-efficient manner so students can have access to this valuable information during their formative training years. Creating a culture for the acceptance of LM is a critical first step and can be accomplished by collaborating with like-minded faculty as well as developing student interest groups. The latter can also be a strong driver for curricular change. This article provides an overview of several structures that can be implemented within existing curricula to offer students a foundation in LM. Included are offerings during the pre-clinical years, third/fourth year electives, culinary medicine rotations, online opportunities, and the development of a full track. Specific components of each structure are shared as well as examples of successful use of community partnerships, use of pre-existing educational resources, and activities implemented. The authors conclude that implementing electives is a promising avenue for educators to expose medical students to LM and can be molded to work within a variety of current educational structures.