Abstract:

Aim:
The purpose of this paper is to present a lifestyle medical education innovation developed by the Brookfield Clinics Centre For Lifestyle Medicine, (BCCLM) Abuja, Nigeria and discuss this innovative model of Lifestyle Medicine curriculum implementation in Nigeria.

Objective:
The objective is to highlight the opportunities afforded by this model, to deans, administrators, faculty members, doctors, allied health professionals, students, country societies and associations of Lifestyle Medicine.

Design/Method/Approach:
The paper is based on a literature survey, author’s research and description of the development of the Brookfield Education Model.

Background:
The root cause of premature adult deaths, the preponderance of non-communicable chronic diseases, and their associated costs are related to unhealthy lifestyle practices, such as poor nutrition, physical inactivity, inadequate sleep and tobacco use. Although therapeutic Lifestyle Medicine (LM) has been acknowledged and recommended as the first line of prevention and management of these chronic diseases, it is still not widely prescribed by many healthcare professionals as the first approach. Notable among the many gaps identified for the lack of prescribing LM is a deficiency in training and education. Most providers do not receive the necessary training that provides the competence and confidence to provide nutrition/LM education and counselling to their patients with non-communicable diseases. It has therefore been advocated that LM education is a crucial intervention that will enable health care providers get the proficiency needed to offer effective and efficient counselling and coaching to their patients, helping them adopt and sustain healthy lifestyle practices. Lifestyle Medicine Curricula, including nutrition, physical activity, sleep, stress management, positive psychology, behavioural change, have evolved over the past decade and now being implemented in various programmes in the United States of America. In Nigeria, this is not yet the case. BCCLM aims to continue to provide this structure in Nigeria. Several models of LM education have been used over the years. There has not been any flipped learning model in LM before now.

Conclusion:
LM education in Nigeria and the rest of the world needs innovations that are scalable and can produce clinicians with increased knowledge and competence in LM. There is need to evaluate the BCCLM Model in a well designed study, looking at the impact of learning LM using the Brookfield Education Model. This model has been found by the students so far, to be convenient and flexible, providing direction, high quality curriculum, expert teaching, peer support, and knowledge sharing. Next steps is to scale up to doctors, allied health professionals, students, medical schools, medical associations, etc all around the world.
“Education not only needs new ideas and inventions that shatter the performance expectations of today’s status quo; to make a meaningful impact, these new solutions must also “scale,” that is grow large enough, to serve millions of students and teachers or large portions of specific underserved populations” (Shelton, 2011).

Keywords:

Lifestyle Medicine Education, Clinicians, Flipped learning, Nigeria, Brookfield, Lifestyle Medicine, competence, healthcare professional, Innovation, Curriculum.