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New course at Duke focuses on obesity

Weight-loss counseling, diabetes management and hypertension treatment are all covered in this multidisciplinary elective.

By Myrle Croasdale, amednews staff. May 24/31, 2004.

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One day, weight management and obesity counseling may be as common in doctors' offices as discussions of ways to quit smoking. In an effort to move toward that goal, Duke University School of Medicine in North Carolina rolled out this year a four-week elective on obesity that covers weight loss and other obesity-related issues.

Jarol Boan, MD, an internist and clinical nutritionist at the Sarah W. Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center at Duke, developed the course. She said that with the school in the midst of revamping its curriculum and public awareness of the obesity problem at an all-time high, the timing was right for a new course on the topic.

"This has been traditionally missed in medical school training," she said. "It's just been in the last five years that it's made the news enough to make people aware of it."

Julie Dombrowski, MD, who just finished her fourth year at Duke's medical school, took the course this year. She was motivated to learn more on the topic after seeing overweight patients during all of her rotations.

Her physician teachers, with 15 minutes scheduled per patient, focused mainly on problems at hand, advising patients only in passing to lose weight. Dr. Dombrowski said it was frustrating to learn about how to treat hypertension or diabetes but not about how to address obesity with patients, even though it is often a significant contributing factor to both diseases.

Obesity is second only to smoking as a cause of preventable deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers estimate 435,000 deaths a year are caused by smoking, while poor diet and inactivity account for 400,000. In 2000, 64% of Americans were obese or overweight.