Deborah Malloy, D.O. Becomes Certified Diplomate of American Board of Lifestyle Medicine

Crozer Health is pleased to announce that Deborah Malloy, D.O. is now a certified Diplomate of the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine. Dr. Malloy is the Assistant Director of the Crozer Health Family Medicine Residency Program and Director of the Lifestyle Medicine Residency Curriculum.

Lifestyle Medicine is an approach to patient care that addresses the root causes of disease with evidence-based therapies in lifestyle behaviors such as diet, exercise, sleep, social connectivity, and stress. Crozer Health supports this approach because by educating patients in these areas, it empowers them to make positive changes in their lifestyle behaviors that will improve their health, prevent chronic disease progression, and even reverse chronic disease.

In July 2021, Crozer Health integrated the Lifestyle Medicine Residency Curriculum into its Family Medicine Residency Program. It is one of only 46 Family Medicine programs in the country to offer this curriculum and the only program in the Philadelphia region to do so.

The Lifestyle Medicine Residency Curriculum is comprehensive and designed to be deliverable by residents to their peers who become a local resource for Lifestyle Medicine information. The educational component includes 40 hours of in-person didactic material along with 60 hours of application activities presented and completed over two years. The practicum component enables residents to clearly demonstrate ongoing exposure to, and use of, the principles of lifestyle medicine in the clinical setting with patients. Upon completion of both the educational and practicum components of the curriculum, residents will be qualified for the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine certification exam. The first Crozer Health resident plans to take the Lifestyle Medicine board exam this fall.

According to Dr. Malloy, Lifestyle Medicine should be the first thought and primary intervention for all Crozer Health patients when physicians are addressing chronic medical conditions. This approach to patient care involves delving deeper into the many components of patients’ lifestyles that impacts their health and wellness.

Dr. Malloy says her most gratifying day in the office is when, after working with a patient who has adopted Lifestyle Medicine behavior changes, she can remove medications from their list because they’ve done the work and are seeing the benefit.

In addition to its Family Medicine Residency Program, Crozer Health offers residency programs in emergency medicine, internal medicine, OB/GYN, podiatry, sports medicine fellowship, and transitional year and ultrasound fellowship (emergency medicine) with a total of 142 residents and fellows.

For more information on Crozer Health’s residency and fellowship programs, visit https://www.crozerhealth.org/academics/residency-fellowship/.