Medical Student Perception of Lifestyle Medicine and Willingness to Engage in Lifestyle Counseling: A Pilot Study of Allopathic and Osteopathic Medical Students.

. This study assessed medical students' perception of lifestyle medicine and readiness to engage in lifestyle counseling. . All medical students in one allopathic and one osteopathic medical school received a survey involving items designed to measure their awareness and interest in lifestyle medicine, perception of physicians serving as lifestyle role models for patients, and intent to practice lifestyle counseling. . Two hundred and eight-nine subjects (145 allopathic and 144 osteopathic students) responded to the survey. A total of 24.1% of responding allopathic students had heard about lifestyle medicine compared with 53.9% of responding osteopathic students ( < .01). A total of 90.5% of allopathic students rated their current knowledge of lifestyle medicine as inadequate or poor compared with 78.7% of osteopathic students ( < .01). Ninety-two percent of all respondents wanted to learn more about lifestyle medicine, while 95.2% believed they would provide more effective counseling if they were trained sufficiently to serve as a healthy lifestyle role model for their patients. . Both cohorts favored learning more about lifestyle medicine and believed physicians should provide lifestyle counseling to patients with chronic diseases. Given these findings, and the demonstrated benefits of lifestyle medicine-based health care, the authors suggest that training in lifestyle medicine be increased in undergraduate medical education.