Welcome To The Pre-launch And Registration Page For Lifestyle Medicine

• Table Of Contents

• What Is Lifestyle Medicine?
• Short Courses For GPs And Practice Nurses
• Short Course CDs For Remote Area Practitioners
• Post Graduate Training
• Summer Schools In Lifestyle Medicine
• About Lifestyle Medicine Co-ordinator
• Summary

What Is Lifestyle Medicine?

Lifestyle medicine is a relatively new discipline, which bridges the gap between health promotion and conventional medicine. It involves a range of health professionals working as a team to prevent, manage and treat the ~70% of modern health problems which have a lifestyle-based cause.

Lifestyle medicine is “…the application of environmental, behavioural, medical and motivational principles to the management of lifestyle related health problems in a clinical setting” (Egger, Binns and Rossner, 2008). It involves the therapeutic use of lifestyle interventions in the management of disease.

The practice of lifestyle medicine extends from that of primary prevention (preventing a disease from developing by modifying the behavioural or environmental cause) to secondary prevention (modifying risk factors to avert the disease) to tertiary prevention (rehabilitation from a disease state and prevention of recurrence). For example, helping prevent a person become overweight by implementing lifestyle changes is primary prevention; helping an overweight person with pre-diabetes avoid diabetic complications is secondary prevention, and advising a morbidly obese patient with poor diabetic control to undergo bariatric surgery to avoid the need for insulin is tertiary prevention.

Courses and Activities in Lifestyle Medicine

Southern Cross University, in conjunction with the Centre for Health Promotion and Research, and Monash University Post Graduate Medical School, is now offering a range of post-graduate training in Lifestyle Medicine for General Practitioners, Practice Nurses and other allied health professionals eligible for benefits under the Enhanced Primary Care (EPC) program throughout Australia and the South Pacific.

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Short Courses For GPs And Practice Nurses

One-day workshops with Continuing Professional Development points from the appropriate associations are provided on a regular basis around Australia. Workshops are in 4 topic areas:

1. Introduction to Lifestyle Medicine

2. Lifestyle Medicine and Mood States

3. Understanding addictions and behaviour for Lifestyle Medicine

4. Environmental aspects of Lifestyle Medicine

Workshops are sponsored by Pfizer pharmaceuticals and the MBF Foundation and are provided at no charge for practicing clinicians or those in training. Workshops are available in all states of Australia.

Successful completion of workshops will result in credit towards the Post Graduate Masters in Clinical Sciences (Lifestyle medicine) at SCU (see below)

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Short Course CDs For Remote Area Practitioners

An ‘Introduction to Lifestyle Medicine’ workshop is currently available for purchase on CD (no charge for remote area health workers), with workbooks and accompanying materials. Successful completion of the workshop will lead to CPD points, although at a lesser level than full attendance. Other workshop CDs are expected to be available in 2008.

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Post Graduate Training

A Post Graduate “Masters in Clinical Sciences (Lifestyle Medicine)” is available on-line from Southern Cross University from 2008. The Masters consists of 8 units (with a core of 4 from Lifestyle Medicine) and a workplace practicum. The four core units are:

1. Introduction to Lifestyle Medicine

2. Motivation for Lifestyle Medicine

3. Addictions, psychology Lifestyle Medicine

4. Environmental aspects of Lifestyle Medicine

The remaining four of the 8 units can be drawn from a range of disciplines including epidemiology, public health, applied health promotion, Aboriginal health, ageing, and complimentary medicine.

The workplace practicum involves a self-selected research project presented at a level for publication in a nominated medical or health journal.

For more details on the Masters of Clinical Sciences (Lifestyle Medicine) at Southern Cross University, click here.

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Summer Schools In Lifestyle Medicine

Short (ie. 2-4 day) summer schools in Lifestyle Medicine are currently planned by Monash University Post Graduate Medical School and Southern Cross University.

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About Lifestyle Medicine Co-ordinator Professor Garry Egger

Director, Centre for Health Promotion and Research, Sydney;

Adjunct Professor of Lifestyle Medicine, Southern Cross University;

Author, Lifestyle Medicine (the text book)

Dr Garry Egger*

Specializes in weight control and obesity management and is an advisor in weight control to several Governments and the World Health Organisation. Professor Egger was the developer of the original GutBuster’s program for men, he has published over 100 peer reviewed articles and 29 books, Garry also develop Australia’s guidelines for both physical activity and weight control for the Australian Government.

Garry has been delivering workshops to general practitioners and practice nurses in Lifestyle Medicine all over Australia for the past 7 years.

Dr Andrew Binns*

GP Lismore, NSW; Adjunct Professor of Health and Allied Sciences, Southern Cross University

Professor Stephan Rossner*

Obesity Unit, Huddinge Hospital, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.

*authors: ‘Lifestyle Medicine’, McGraw-Hill, Sydeny, 2008.

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Summary

Lifestyle medicine represents a different approach to dealing with the significant proportion of patients with ailments caused predominantly by lifestyle, now presenting to health care practitioners. Managing these problems changes the emphasis from conventional treatment to one where the patient needs to be more involved in his or her care, and which therefore requires considerable knowledge and skills in motivation on the part of the clinician. New developments in health funding, involving allied health professionals as part of a health care ‘team’, now make this not only financially feasible, but necessary for dealing with the changes in disease aetiology, associated with our modern way of life.

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