Patrick DenardDirector Oregon Shoulder Fellowship, Oregon Shoulder Institute · Director Oregon Shoulder Fellowship at Oregon Shoulder Institute

Why Isn't My Surgeon Talking to Me About Nutrition?

23 Feb 2026 · 1 min

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In this brief educational monologue, the speaker highlights a paradox in surgical care: although more than 80% of patients want their surgeons to discuss nutrition before an operation, most surgeons do not. The speaker attributes this gap to three main barriers: surgeons are pressed for time due to modern healthcare pressures, they receive little to no nutrition education during medical school, and they are often unaware of existing patient nutrition resources. Despite this communication shortfall, the speaker emphasizes that evidence shows pre‑operative nutritional optimization improves surgical outcomes. Consequently, patients (or their families) are urged to proactively seek nutritional support before surgery to enhance recovery.

Chapters

If nutrition is so important in surgical outcomes, why isn't your surgeon talking to you about nutrition prior to surgery? Well, patients actually really prefer this. Over 80% of patients express interest in having this discussion with their surgeon, but it doesn't occur. There's probably a couple of reasons. Number one is the surgeon's pressed for time, and that's due to the shape of medical care as it is today. Number two, they don't get a lot of education in medical school. I got very little to no education on nutrition going going through medical school when I trained. And number 3, they often don't realize that there's resources for patients. So right or wrong, this means that many patients have to seek out nutritional options on their own. But if they do, the data is clear that it does improve surgical outcomes. So if you're having surgery or know somebody's having surgery, really encourage them to pursue nutritional optimization prior to surgery so they can improve their outcome.