Breakout
As the world faces an unprecedented rise in nutrition-related diseases and conditions where nutrition can improve outcomes, including obesity, cancer, critical care, and metabolic disorders, especially within aging populations, the demand for skilled researchers, clinicians, and educators in clinical nutrition has never been more urgent. However, our critical specialty is experiencing a decline in nutrition-trained physicians and pharmacists and there is a need for more research-focused dietitians. This crisis is compounded by and in part due to, significant shortcomings in medical and professional clinical nutrition education in medical schools and post-graduate training. To address this crisis in our clinical nutrition specialty, this lecture will explore the essential attributes of great mentors, drawing inspiration from history and pop culture, and underscore the pivotal role of mentorship, such as that provided by the great Dr. Bistrian, in fostering the next generation of clinical nutrition professionals. By examining strategies to address educational gaps and reignite interest in clinical nutrition careers through advances such as new clinical nutrition technology, the lecture will highlight how mentorship can be leveraged to cultivate interprofessional collaboration among the healthcare team including physicians, dietitians, nurses, advanced practice providers, and pharmacists, ensuring the growth and sustainability of our vital specialty for education, research, and clinical practice.
Paul E. Wischmeyer, MD, EDIC, FCCM, FASPEN is a critical care, perioperative and nutrition physician who serves as a Tenured Professor of Anesthesiology and Surgery at Duke University School of Medicine. He also serves as the Associate Vice Chair for Clinical Research in the Dept. of Anesthesiology & Director of the Nutrition Team at Duke Hospital. Finally, he is the founder and Co-Director of the Duke Clinical Nutrition Fellowship. Dr. Wischmeyer’s clinical and research focus is focused helping patients prepare and recover from critical illness and surgery. His research interests include surgical and ICU nutrition and exercise rehabilitation therapy, parenteral nutrition and personalized nutrition trials, perioperative optimization, post-illness muscle mass and functional recovery, and role of probiotics/microbiome in illness. Dr. Wischmeyer receives significant ongoing funding from the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense and Industry Sponsors. He has received numerous awards for his work from national and international societies, including the Jeffrey Silverstein Award and Memorial Lecture for Humanism in Medicine from the American Delirium Society, the John M. Kinney Award for the most significant contribution to the field of general nutrition, and the Stanley Dudrick Research Scholar Award and the Bruce Bistrian Nutrition Mentorship Award of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ASPEN). He has >245 publications (H index-75 and >60 papers with >100 citations) in nutrition, critical care, exercise, probiotics/microbiome and perioperative care, including publications in New England Journal of Medicine. He has been an invited speaker at numerous national/international medical meetings, delivering over 1000 invited presentations in his career. Finally, he is an advocate and lecturer for improving the patient experience and teaching provider’s to keep CARE as the focus of healthcare.
Date & Time:
March 24, 2025
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM ET
Format:
In Person & Virtual
CE Credits:
1 Hours
UAN: JA0002345-0000-25-053-L99-P
Course level:
Intermediate
What You'll Learn
- Describe the attributes of a great mentor, using examples from history and pop culture, and explain why the clinical nutrition specialty needs mentors like Dr. Bistrian.
- Explain the decline in the number of nutrition-trained physicians and pharmacists and the growing need for research/academic dietitians.
- Evaluate the gaps in medical and professional education that hinder the integration of nutrition into healthcare practice and how we might address them to increase focus on clinical nutrition as a career focus.
- Demonstrate the critical need for training more clinical nutrition researchers, educators, and clinicians given the growing global burden of nutrition-related diseases and conditions where nutrition predicts outcomes, including obesity, surgery, cancer, critical care, and metabolic disorders, especially in an aging population.
- Explore strategies for leveraging and improving mentorship to cultivate and sustain clinical nutrition as a vital specialty, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration among physicians, dietitians, nurses, advanced practice providers, and pharmacists for education, research, and clinical practice.
Topics & Presenters
“Do or Not Do, There is No Try” - Mentoring the Future of Clinical Nutrition: Is Our Specialty in Crisis, and Why the World Needs Us Now More Than Ever
Professor of Anesthesiology and Surgery
Duke University School of Medicine
Physician Director
TPN/Nutrition Support Service, DUH, Duke University School of Medicine
Director, Duke Online Clinical Nutrition Fellowship
Duke University School of Medicine
Associate Vice Chair for Clinical Research
Department of Anesthesiology, Duke University School of Medicine