ABSTRACT
The subject of nutrition education in medical schools is not new. In 1985 a committee to study the state of nutrition in American medical schools and to recommend any needed improvements was organized by the National Research Council (NRC). A background report on the state of nutrition education in United States medical schools was sent to the participants before the meeting. The nutrition community has been talking to itself, and the medical educators have been conducting business as usual. Medical schools have become dominated by tertiary care and by modern technology. This had come about partly because of the perception that the frontiers of medicine lie in these directions and more recently because medical schools are financed to a larger and larger extent by the funds generated by providing high-tech tertiary care. The Flexner report changed medical education from essentially an apprentice system employing volunteer faculty to a system in which the full-time faculty member conducting clinical research became dominant.
