Objective: Clinical nutrition assessment is a clinical skill not taught in many medical schools in North America. The purpose of this study is to determine whether second-year medical students can be taught to perform a nutritional Subjective Global Assessment (SGA).
Methods: In this study, second-year medical students were given a didactic session and a bedside demonstration of the SGA. Subsequently, they performed an SGA on unknown patients and classified those patients into one of three categories: A) well nourished, B) moderately malnourished, or C) severely malnourished. This was compared with the assessments of clinical dietitians and a physician.
Results: After this instruction, medical students correctly identified malnourished individuals. They were less accurate in their subclassification between mildly and severely malnourished individuals. The degree of agreement with clinical dietitians and a physician was fair (kappa = 0.34).
Conclusions: With a multidisciplinary team of physicians and clinical dietitians, medical students can be taught the SGA in a 3h format. This is an important clinical skill that emphasizes the importance of clinical nutrition and may help identify malnourished individuals early in the course of their hospitalization.