In preparing a curriculum guide, IPNEC developed a content template by surveying physician members of its constituent societies who practice clinical nutrition. This template formed the outline for the curriculum guide. It was not considered necessary or desirable to write new curricular materials (articles, books, etc.) because a wealth of these exists. Rather, the guide’s intent is to point trainees to the best available resources in each content area. Also, while the Guide is intended to be a relatively complete resource, it is by no means exhaustive, and many very worthy resources could not be listed. If you have any suggestions for revisions, please address them to the Webmaster.

The practice of clinical nutrition, as with other areas of medical practice, must be based on the best medical evidence. The references presented in this curriculum guide are intended to provide the foundation of evidence on which clinical nutrition practice is based. Each citation is annotated in order to assist in selecting the resources that will be most useful to each training situation. While each section of the guide must be used to some extent in order to permit comprehensive training, programs providing nutrition fellowship training may emphasize the portions of the guide that best meet the objectives of their fellowship and the needs of their fellows. Program directors can decide whether to provide trainees with copies of each cited resource or selected resources.

Within each content category the guide contains references to some or all of the following:

• Textbooks and chapters
• Review articles
• Original reports
• Seminal papers
• Case studies
• Mediated materials
• Web sites
• Clinical algorithms, practice standards, position papers
• Pocket cards, downloadable packages