Medical Education

Education and training permeate every aspect of the Center’s activities. Our clinical work forms a core component of our education programs and generates questions we seek to answer in our research. Our education and training programs transform the thinking and the clinical care of those who train with us and this generates an educational ripple effect as the physicians and students we train become change-agents and leaders in the positive transformation of our healthcare system.

Medical Students

Clinical Nutrition Elective (ME 226.03)- Open to MS3 Ext/MS4
This course provides an intensive exposure to nutrition in an ambulatory setting, preparing students to integrate nutrition therapy into their clinical practice for the prevention and treatment of common chronic diseases with an emphasis on obesity management. Students will work in a variety of settings including the Clinical Nutrition clinic, bariatric surgery (COMET) clinic and ULCA Medical Weight Management Program at UCLA. They will have exposure to working in a multidisciplinary team with dietitians. As of July 2020 students will not be rotating at the West LA VA due to logistical constraints in setting of COVID.

Registration

For UCLA Students please refer to the UCLA Oasis Scheduling website for information regarding availability and details about the course.

At this time we are unable to offer this elective to visiting students.

Residents

The Center for Human Nutrition rotation offers UCLA Internal Medicine interns and residents the opportunity to get clinical experience in the practice of nutrition medicine and gain exposure to various health topics such as weight management, metabolic diseases, and cancer.  Please contact your Program Coordinator within your residency program to learn more.

At this time we are unable to host visiting residents.

Graduate Level Courses

Epi 254 Nutritional Epidemiology
Nutritional Epidemiology is a course taught by Dr. Catherine Carpenter.  The course entails: lecture & discussion, two hours (twice per week) - Reviews all aspects of contemporary nutrition sciences that require the application of epidemiologic principles and methods ranging from food-born outbreak investigation to evidence-based regulatory assessment of health claims for foods. It is intended for students to gain experience in the actual world of collecting, analyzing and interpreting data related to nutrition and health or disease outcomes.

Epi257 Nutritional Epidemiology II
Nutritional Epidemiology II is a course taught by Dr. Catherine This course addresses methodological aspects of research in nutritional epidemiology. Each student who enrolls in the course will develop an outline of what they plan to accomplish in the course. Students will need to have a nutritional epidemiologic topic in mind to explore, or, if they do not have a topic, they will identify one at the beginning of the course. Topic of study for each student needs to include a data set. If the student does not have a data set, one will be provided, or one will be located. A finalized approved outline will be due on the third week of the course.

Dr. Carpenter will lecture about concepts related to each students' chosen project, that will include why and how to conduct validation studies, adjustment for confounding, considerations of total energy intake and intermediary phenotypes, correction of measurement error, concepts of interaction and interpretation, various methods in making conditional inference in observational settings. Theoretical as well as practical aspects will be covered. This course is intended primarily for doctoral students interested in doing epidemiologic research.

Undergraduate Student

Physiological Sciences, Phy Sci 167 "Physiology of Nutrition"

Physiology of Nutrition is an upper division course taught by Dr. David Heber that is open to senior Physiological Science Majors.  Topics include physiological adaptation to starvation and physiological responses to oxidants/antioxidants, an in-depth section on the obesity and obesity-related disease, vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, and their relationship to common chronic diseases and physiology of fuel utilization during aerobic and anaerobic exercise. Students are required to complete an in-depth self-assessment assignment which includes an analysis of their diet and lifestyle habits, as well as an analysis of their body composition.