Medical professionals serve as influential sources of information and guidance for their patients. Medical school may be an opportune time to provide future physicians with training in physical activity (PA) so that it can be more effectively addressed in clinical practice.
To assess the inclusion and amount of PA training in US medical school curricula, we attempted to conduct structured interviews with the program directors of the 171 accredited US medical education programs in the spring of 2013.
Seventy-four schools (allopathic, n = 64; osteopathic, n = 10) completed the structured interviews. Fifty-eight programs (78.4%) reported having PA training included as a part of their curriculum. Thirty-five (61.4%) and 25 (43.9%) programs included instruction on national aerobic and strength training guidelines, respectively. Thirty-one programs (56.4%) felt that they offered a sufficient level of PA-related training for their students to successfully counsel their patients in the future. Over the 4 years of medical school, an average of 8.1 (± 9.8) h of mandatory PA training was offered.
Though many medical schools report providing some level of PA content, the time dedicated for this training is still low in comparison to other topics, such as nutrition education, which are featured more prominently. New and innovative ideas are needed for the integration of more, higher quality PA training for our next generation of medical practitioners.
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science
2
3%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences
2
3%
Other
7
9%
Unknown
28
37%
Attention Score in Context
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 14. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 09 December 2021.
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#3,451,061
of 34,447,360 outputs
Outputs from Physician & Sportsmedicine
#175
of 1,153 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#34,909
of 301,770 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Physician & Sportsmedicine
#5
of 19 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,447,360 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 89th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,153 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.2. This one has done well, scoring higher than 84% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 19 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 73% of its contemporaries.
