Lifestyle Medicine
Mission:
Lifestyle medicine uses therapeutic lifestyle interventions as a primary modality to treat chronic conditions including, but not limited to, cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, and obesity by applying evidence-based, whole-person, prescriptive lifestyle change to treat and, when used intensively, often reverse such conditions. The six pillars of lifestyle medicine are—a whole-food, plant-predominant eating pattern, physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, avoidance of risky substances, and positive social connections. Students will immerse themselves in these 6 pillars not only through current and past literature related to these topics, but also through interactive experiences to get an understanding of the multidisciplinary nature of medicine as well as be ready to discuss making changes to health behaviors with patients. They will be trained to consider these essential pillars of health when practicing medicine and help reduce the burden of diseases by integrating prescriptive lifestyle changes with conventional medical practice.
Co-directors:
Puja Gandhi MD MPH
Tiffany Champagne-Langabeer PhD, RD
Administrative coordinator:
TBD, possibly Internal medicine coordinators Lexus Campbell or Angela Mays
Maximum number of students/year: 5
Student selection process: Students will apply (with CV and answering a few prompts on lifestyle medicine: 1) Why do you want to be a part of LM concentration? 2) What do you want to get out of the concentration?) and be reviewed by the directors to get into concentration
Timeline for student completion of concentration requirements:
Concentration requirements (didactic and experiential):
- Total 15 hours in intensive lifestyle program involvement or shadowing a community health worker, Community health education specialist, social worker, nutritionist (Diana Guevara, Sarah Wagner (part of Pulm/cards rehab program at MH and OP) and Christine Taylor and Lucy Lengfelder (part of Ertan Digestive/GI nutrition), Melisa Danho – director of dietetic internship-has culinary med classes, volunteering, shadowing ), psychologist (Amanda Zold), physical therapist (Christopher Gallina), sleep specialist (Sudha Tallavajhula), nourish program/culinary med course at LBJ (Natalia Heredia), core connections at UT Victory (Victoriano Valdez), HEROES program (substance abuse clinic), obesity clinic (15 hours-shadow at least 2 specialists and attend at least 1 program)
- 10 submissions of lifestyle medicine prescription discussed with patient (document created by ACLM) (10 clinical hours)
- Canvas online component: go through all readings, videos and complete 10 modules on Lifestyle medicine disciplines (within 4 years)- (16 hours)
- Includes: Submit brief paper on what lifestyle change you made in your life and how it has affected you ( OR Submit brief paper discussing how you addressed a lifestyle factor with a patient or your family (including forming the lifestyle prescription with them and what you learned from the experience moving forward))
- Be a part of Lifestyle in Medicine blue book and attend lecture series, events (10 hours)
- 10 hours of volunteering with Houston Food Bank/Brighter Bites/LBJ farmer’s market or farm (another lifestyle medicine focused nonprofit org), and/or participate in Walk with a Doc, meditation session (such as with Dr. Alejandro Chaoul) (at least 1 has to be his session), mindfulness yoga (meditation center) (10 hours)
- Attend 1 out of 2 lifestyle medicine journal club meetings/year (4 hours total)-after reading required articles
- Participate in biannual meeting with director
- Meet with mentor 2-3x/semester to develop project
- Participate in 1 LMED/other case study per semester (attend 1/year)- (4 hours)-1 medical student in the concentration will choose a case and lead as MS3/MS4 (2 students-responsible for coordination) for MS1/MS2 students (if they decide to lead, 1 less grand rounds to attend)
MS 1
Required
- Motivational Interviewing training-by Rosalia Guerrero-2 hours
- Choose between advocacy, research focus, or project focus:
- Find mentor and develop project with mentor. Can develop a project related to the following:
- Development of a new clinical protocol
- Original basic or clinical research, implementation research
- Development of a new curriculum component or module
- Evaluation of an outreach program or educational component
- Creation of a bioengineering tool
- Creative medical writing
- Find mentor and develop project with mentor. Can develop a project related to the following:
Optional
- Apply for Summer Research Program or participate in Healthcare Innovation Collaborative
- Incorporate Salud y Vida program-still pending discussion*
- Partake in nutrition in medicine elective, obesity in medicine elective, cultural food club, McGovern climbing club, McGovern run club
- Become a member of the American College of Lifestyle medicine
MS 2
Required
- Students are responsible for ensuring mentorship agreement form is signed by student and mentor by September 30th of MS2 year; and submitted to administrative coordinator
- Develop project with mentor
Optional
- Partake in nutrition in medicine elective, obesity in medicine elective, cultural food club, McGovern climbing club, McGovern run club
- Become a member of the American College of Lifestyle medicine
MS 3
Required
- Attend 4 grand rounds during MS3-MS4 year-related to lifestyle medicine (can be counted even if a required grand rounds attended during clerkship). In place of a grand rounds, you may attend a community-based meeting on a lifestyle medicine topic. For example, you may watch a webinar on any of the lifestyle concentration areas (can follow School of Public Health for webinars or Dell center for healthy living for conferences). Please submit a list of the 4 additional topics observed-by writing a reflection (250 words max) on how it applies to your practice of lifestyle medicine. (4 hours)
- Continue to develop project with mentor
Optional
- Partake in nutrition in medicine elective, obesity in medicine elective, cultural food club, McGovern climbing club, McGovern run club
- Become a member of the American College of Lifestyle medicine
MS 4
Required
- Submit proof completion of research project by sending final product (if published or paper piece), please ask directors how to submit proof of final project if unable to send final product.
- In addition, students will be required to submit their project as an abstract or poster (as appropriate, with guidance from their faculty mentor) to local or state professional meetings-ex: ACLM annual conference or primary care track meeting presentation, public health conference, or Annual symposium/poster day. Possible grand rounds presentation.
- Exit interview with director and complete evaluation of concentration.
Optional
- Complete 1 elective course related to lifestyle medicine: preventative medicine, ambulatory family medicine, humanistic elements of medicine, certificate in healthcare management, MD approach to LGBTQ+ healthcare, Ambulatory HIV/AIDS, ambulatory Internal Medicine
- Partake in nutrition in medicine elective, obesity in medicine elective, cultural food club, McGovern climbing club, McGovern run club
- Become a member of the American College of Lifestyle medicine
Scholarly Concentration Faculty
** This is not an exclusive list. Please approach potential mentors from our institution as well as other institutions and if help is needed reach out to the director of the concentration for assistance.
| Faculty Name | Contribution(s) to Concentration | Department |
| Puja Gandhi MD MPH | Director, Project Mentor | Internal Medicine, Lifestyle medicine |
| Tiffany Langabeer Champagne PhD, MBA, RD, LD | Project Mentor-confirmed | Nutrition, Meditation, Biomedical Informatics |
| Rajashree Nambron MD | Project Mentor-maybe | Internal Medicine, Endocrinology, Lifestyle medicine |
| Dr. Pritesh Mutha MD | Project mentor-if project available | Internal Medicine, GI, Lifestyle medicine |
| Elena Zamora MD | Project Mentor-confirmed | Family Medicine, Obesity Medicine |
| Victoriano Valdez MD | Project Mentor-confirmed | Internal Medicine, Culinary Medicine |
| Amanda Zold PhD | Project Mentor-confirmed | Substance abuse, MI, CBT |
| Micaela Karlsen Phd, MsPH | ACLM Senior director of research-confirmed | Lifestyle medicine (have to be a member of ACLM to participate) |
| Kevin Hwang MD MPH | Project Mentor-confirmed | Internal medicine, Obesity medicine |
| Sudha Tallavajhula MD
|
Project Mentor-confirmed | Clinical Neurophysiology, Sleep medicine |
| Andrea Taylor PhD | Project Mentor-pending discussion | Stress, CBT, Mental health |
| Dr. Alejandro Chaoul | Project Mentor-confirmed | Stress, Positive psychology, meditation |