Developing an education program for nutrition support teams.

Focused training and continuing medical education are necessary for nutrition support clinicians to acquire new skills, maintain competence, and keep abreast of advancements in the field. Unfortunately, there is a lack of physician-nutrition specialists to act as teachers and role models. One solution is to have members of a multidisciplinary nutrition support team, regardless of discipline, share their expertise with others. This is best accomplished within the framework of a formal education program that can accommodate the knowledge and skill level of each instructor and educational goals of each student. Developing an education program should include the following steps: formulate general goals of the program, specify learning objectives, assess each student's current level of knowledge and educational goals, determine educational strategies and learning activities that will best meet the goals of each student and the program, and devise a method to evaluate the performance of each student and the program as a whole.