4. Discussion
The present survey study performed on medical oncologists in Turkey investigated the medical oncologists’ clinical nutrition training status, awareness of, and ability to assess, nutritional status and identify malnutrition and barriers to routine use of clinical nutrition in cancer patients.
4.1. Clinical nutrition training status
In the present study less than half of the respondents (43.1%) stated that they had received clinical nutrition education. A previous UK study of the views and practice of oncologists towards nutritional support in patients receiving chemotherapy showed a similar level of nutrition training at either post-graduate or undergraduate level (45%) [11] suggesting the results from our Turkish study are not unusual. Based on our findings strategies to improve access to clinical nutrition education at both undergraduate and postgraduate level should be investigated.