Training Physician Assistant Students to Provide Evidence-Based, Holistic, Patient-Driven Care: a Novel Curriculum.

Lifestyle and behavior modifications are the primary preventative strategies to mitigate the growing morbidity, mortality, and cost of chronic disease in the USA (Trilk et al., 56:e169-e175, 2019); hence, there have been multiple calls to train all healthcare professionals in lifestyle medicine (LM). This paper describes and evaluates the implementation of a novel Whole Health/lifestyle medicine (WH-LM) education initiative for physician assistant (PA) students embedded within a clinical rotation at the VA Boston Healthcare System (VABHS). Students demonstrated increased knowledge of WH-LM principles and increased self-efficacy in utilizing these principles following training.