Noncommunicable chronic diseases impose an immense economic strain on healthcare systems worldwide. Their causes, often related to lifestyle choices such as consuming plant-based diets; physical activity; restful sleep; stress management techniques, and positive social relationships, can all be addressed with evidence-based therapeutic interventions such as whole food plant-based diets; physical activity; restful sleep, and stress management techniques as well as positive social connection strategies.
ACLM is leading the charge to integrate lifestyle medicine into medical education and practice, offering its curricular resources to physicians, medical students in training, and allied health professional groups:
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Membership
Members can access abundant valuable resources, including an educational webinar series and professional-grade publications. Furthermore, members can connect with like-minded professionals through ACLM’s Member Interest Groups, which provide opportunities to build relationships and collaborate. ACLM even offers a community for physicians in training as well as students!
The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) is the nation’s medical professional society that promotes evidenced-based lifestyle medicine as the cornerstone for creating a transformative and sustainable healthcare system that promotes whole-person wellness. Their members receive comprehensive education, certification, research support, and advocacy from ACLM as they aim to identify and eliminate root causes of chronic disease through quality education, certification programs, research support services, and advocacy efforts.
ACLM’s educational offerings cater to physicians, medical professionals in training, physician assistants, nurses, nurse practitioners, physical therapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, and registered dietitians. Furthermore, ACLM oversees the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine, certifying physicians in this rapidly developing field of lifestyle medicine.
ACLM launched the Health Systems Council (HSC), a collaborative learning community dedicated to accelerating the transition to high-value care through lifestyle medicine integration. To date, 65 healthcare systems have joined HSC as founding members.
ACLM has made great strides toward its mission with help from its engaged membership base, expanding educational offerings such as Foundations of Lifestyle Medicine Board Review Course – 3rd Edition online course that fulfills board certification exam prerequisite and provides a comprehensive review of lifestyle medicine topics like whole food plant-based diet; regular physical activity; adequate sleep; positive social connection; stress management and avoidance of risky substances.
ACLM has also established a Lifestyle Medicine Core Competencies Program to train clinicians on treating and preventing chronic diseases through lifestyle interventions backed by evidence, an essential step in changing our healthcare system. Furthermore, its organizational structure was changed from non-profit to 501(c)3, permitting it to accept tax-deductible donations while restructuring the Health Systems Council to better support members implementing lifestyle medicine best practices.
Education
The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) provides quality education and certification programs for physicians and other healthcare professionals dedicated to clinical and worksite practice of lifestyle medicine as the cornerstone of a sustainable healthcare system. Lifestyle medicine practices incorporate evidence-based interventions like whole food plant-rich diet; physical activity; restful sleep; stress management; avoidance of risky substances, and social connections for treating and even reversing chronic illness.
ACLM is the nation’s medical professional society dedicated to lifestyle medicine as the cornerstone of an equitable healthcare delivery system that promotes whole-person wellness. Through high-quality, evidence-based education and certification programs that equip members to identify and eliminate chronic disease root causes through the clinical outcome goals of health restoration rather than disease management, ACLM prepares and empowers members for whole-person wellness.
ACLM also provides CME and CE courses and a Lifestyle Medicine Board Review course designed to aid physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists, psychologists, and dietitians in preparing for the lifestyle medicine board certification exam. This course can be taken both online and in person.
This curriculum is created based on national guidelines, current research for each content area, and recommendations from professional societies across the United States. This comprehensive and up-to-date curriculum is a solid basis for future innovations and advancement in lifestyle medicine.
ACLM also oversees an impressive library of lifestyle medicine CME activities and credits on its AMA Ed Hub digital platform, designed for physicians, medical students, and health care professionals in training; physician assistants; registered nurses, nurse practitioners; physical therapists, psychologists; pharmacists and dietitians.
ACLM has developed the HEAL member interest group to advance health equity through lifestyle medicine, and hosted some of the country’s foremost thought leaders at its inaugural Health Disparities Solutions Summit in 2020. Under this initiative, a series of LMCC modules specifically targeting health disparities were also designed to address their root causes while offering practical approaches for dealing with them.
Certification
The American College of Lifestyle Medicine has developed a certification framework to recognize physicians and health professionals with knowledge of lifestyle medicine. Physicians certified as lifestyle doctors can help their patients to improve their health by teaching them how to prevent, arrest, and even reverse chronic disease using nondrug treatments such as whole food plant-based diet, regular physical activity, sleep optimization, stress reduction techniques and other nontoxic means.
An expanding body of research indicates that lifestyle medicine competence can have profound clinical consequences, including improved patient outcomes and satisfaction, reduced costs, and alignment with the Quintuple Aim: better care for patients and families, safer healthcare systems, more robust public health initiatives, and environmental sustainability. A board-certified lifestyle medicine physician would be an asset to any health system or medical practice dedicated to improving patient satisfaction and outcomes.
Lifestyle medicine certification can be accomplished easily and affordably. Physicians can begin by enrolling in ACLM’s Foundations of Lifestyle Medicine Board Review Course either online or in-person to fulfill 30 hours of CME required for certification, followed by registration for and sitting the ABLM certification exam at Prometric testing centers.
Once a physician successfully passes the ABLM exam, he or she becomes a Board Certified Diplomate of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. He or she can become recognized as a leader in lifestyle medicine with tools to implement its practices within his or her practice, hospital system, or any other health-related entity.
Apart from certification, ACLM membership benefits extend far beyond certification – they include access to journals, clinical practice tools and resources, economic research studies, networking events, and an array of possibilities. Furthermore, membership opens the doors for lucrative career opportunities within lifestyle medicine; many doctors who incorporate lifestyle medicine into their practices report greater job satisfaction than those who don’t include lifestyle medicine.
Community
ACLM is committed to making healthy diets and lifestyles available to all individuals, particularly underserved populations. Their education programs help doctors, medical students in training, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, psychologists, therapists, and registered dietitians prevent, treat and reverse chronic diseases using their lifestyle medicine patient engagement model.
ACLM’s community involvement efforts include hosting the Health Disparities Solutions Summit, an online forum convening physicians, faith-based leaders, academics, and community organizers to identify expert consensus and action steps necessary for addressing lifestyle-related chronic disease health disparities. This Summit forms part of ACLM’s Health Equity Achieved Through Lifestyle Medicine (HEAL) Initiative.
Humana and ACLM have joined forces to offer ACLM’s educational courses free of charge to healthcare providers contracted by them seeking to use lifestyle medicine to treat chronic diseases in their patients. This partnership forms part of ACLM’s $24.1 million commitment at the 2022 White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health to donate continuing education courses on nutrition as medicine to 100,000 physicians and other healthcare professionals nationwide.
An increasing number of medical schools are including lifestyle medicine in their curriculums. For instance, the University of Arizona College of Medicine offers an intensive lifestyle medicine track during family medicine residency training; the Western University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific features a comprehensive lifestyle medicine curriculum featuring didactic learning, culinary medicine experiences, and an elective longitudinal lifestyle medicine rotation in clinical years of training.
ACLM and Loma Linda University Health have collaborated to develop the Lifestyle Medicine Residency Curriculum to educate residents on implementing lifestyle medicine interventions with patients. It is currently being piloted at various medical institutions, and completion will qualify residents to sit the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine certification exam.
Lifestyle diseases represent a substantial burden to the U.S. healthcare system, costing an estimated $2.9 trillion by 2022. Much was spent treating noncommunicable chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes, often linked to diet, lifestyle factors, and nutritional supplements. To change how these conditions are addressed by medicine practitioners and wellness programs alike, ACLM works toward increasing lifestyle medicine’s presence within undergraduate/graduate medical education and worksite wellness programming.
