The research posters below were presented at Health meets Food: the Culinary Medicine Conference in 2018.
View the 2017 Posters | View the 2019 Posters
Univ Texas Southwestern Education
Title: Culinary Medicine Enrichment Elective: Why and How to Launch Curriculum for Medical Students
Authors: Albin & Cheng
Contact info: Jaclyn.albin@ UTSouthwestern.edu
Description: Despite the shift of disease burden toward chronic conditions with modifiable risk factors impacted by lifestyle, physician education continues to provide inadequate exposure to nutrition education. An internal survey of third year medical students at our institution, UT Southwestern Medical School, showed that 2/3 of students did not feel adequately prepared to counsel patients regarding nutritional needs. To address this gap in nutrition education, we partnered with the Department of Clinical Nutrition at the School of Health Professions and Moncrief Cancer Institute to launch a Culinary Medicine Enrichment Elective for first-year medical students. During the elective, each of eight sessions consist of a case-based discussion, a hands-on cooking segment, and a didactic presentation on current literature and recommendations for the nutrition principles highlighted by the session. The elective is facilitated by a multidisciplinary team including course directors (a physician and a registered dietician), a professional chef, and third and fourth year medical student peer mentors. We aim to provide our medical students with evidence-based nutrition knowledge and equip them with appropriate tools to counsel patients and improve their personal nutrition. After the first year, our students endorsed positive experiences, increased clinically-relevant nutrition knowledge, and increased confidence in talking with patients about food.
UTH McGovern Medical School, UTH School of Public Health / Tulane University School of Medicine
Title: Machine learning- supported propensity score analysis of traditional medical education versus hands- on cooking and nutrition
Authors: At UTH, Helen Burks; at Tulane, Justin Tran. John McWhorter, Anish Patnaik, Jordan Shull, Alexandra Ngo, Renato Guerrieri, Annat Rabinovich, Nadine Naguib, Tu Dan Nguyen, Charles Chassay, Laura Moore, Shreela Sharma, Deanna M. Hoelscher, Dominique Monlezun, MD
Contact info: Dominique.Monlezun@gmail.com
Description: This multi-national cohort study, Cooking for Health Optimization with Patients (CHOP, NIH NCT03443635), tests the efficacy of hands-on cooking and nutrition education in comparison to traditional medical education to improve medical trainee mastery of 25 competency topics, in addition to their own diets, and ultimately patients’ CVD health through the world’s first medical school-based teaching kitchen, The Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine (GCCM).
This causal inference and machine learning-driven preliminary analysis of the first year of UTH trainees supports proof of concept that hands-on cooking and nutrition compared to traditional education improves trainee diets and their competency educating patients on nutrition as preventive cardiology. Additional studies are required with larger UTH sample sizes to validate these findings and extend them to patients educated in those classes taught by the trainees to ultimately assess patient clinical outcomes.
University of Massachusetts Research
Title: Healthy Eating for Individuals with Severe Mental Illness: Lessons from a Community Health Improvement Plan
Authors: Cheung, Amy
Contact info: Amy.cheung@umassmed.edu
Description: Community Health Improvement Plan – Severe Mental Illness (CHIP-SMI) is a community initiative to improve patient outcomes through healthier living practices. Patients with SMI (e.g., schizophrenia, bipolar disorder) have a higher mortality rate and reduced life expectancy in part due to poor diet, which may result in metabolic abnormalities (e.g., obesity, hypertension) and eventually lead to sudden cardiac death. In group homes in Worcester, MA, where SMI patients reside, we plan to address gaps in healthy eating-related activities and knowledge. Needs assessment interviews and focus groups will be conducted to enhance our understanding of healthy eating attitudes among participating patients. Excitingly, CHIP-SMI is organizing an event where thirty to forty group home patients will be introduced to nutrition and be taught how to prepare a healthier version of a favorite group home-cooked dish. Understanding the need for healthy eating intervention and education in group homes is a critical step toward reducing cardiovascular-related consequences seen in these patients.
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine
Title: Healthy Kitchens: Eating on a Budget without Compromising Taste
Authors: Dukhan, Alexandra
Contact info: dukhan79899@med.lecom.edu
Description: Over the past few decades, poverty and obesity have become synonymous. Poor eating habits and inactive lifestyles have inevitably lead to an increased risk for metabolic syndrome. Healthy Kitchens was created to educate medical students and community members about the significance of food choice in the management of obesity and associated diseases. We investigated meal preferences to optimize spending and determine cost per meal. By identifying the most popular recipes, we could minimize our spending and food waste by decreasing the yield of less popular recipes. We expected to find that modules with a higher cost per participant would be favored. However, analysis showed that there was no correlation between the price per module and ranking of the module (p=.542). Possible error can be attributed to lack of participant response to surveys and ranking system confusion. We can apply these findings to direct further investigations on optimizing economic efficiency.
Mt. Carmel Hospital
Title: Recipe for Success – Dicing up the Culinary Curriculum
Authors: Jennifer Espenchied, Lisa Hamilton MD, Noah Hagen DO
Contact info: espenschiedj@email.wofford.edu
Description: Mount Carmel Health Internal Medicine Residency Program has chosen to present the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine curriculum during shorter class periods over the course of a weeklong period. The goal of this study is to assess the effect of a segmented class schedule on attendance numbers and residents’ retention of coursework information. We hypothesized that a weeklong, segmented class schedule would lead to greater material comprehension in students, ultimately demonstrated through an improvement between pre and post examination scores. The success seen in residents’ improvement over the course of four modules suggests that the weeklong modules is an alternative option of the Culinary Medicine curriculum delivery for programs with similar academic and scheduling constraints for residents.
University of Utah Education
Title: University of Utah Culinary Medicine Program
Authors: J. Gardner
Contact info: jegardner@hsc.utah.edu
Description: The interdisciplinary culinary medicine program at the University of Utah represents a collaboration between the University of Utah School of Medicine and College of Health. The course has completed three iterations since Fall 2016, and the curriculum shifted over that period to focus on locally designed content with case-based discussion, role play, practical food-based discussion, and recipes with local produce. Survey data available from the students in the first two iterations of the course show that favorite topics include weight management, pediatrics, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. Further survey data suggests that students at the University of Utah find value in a culinary medicine course that is mostly in the kitchen, practical, clinically-focused, and interdisciplinary. Students perceived strong knowledge in culinary medicine competencies after completing the course. Students from year 2 reported post-course competency improvement that was statistically significantly compared to pre-course ability.
Mt. Carmel Hospital
Title: P.R.O.D.U.C.E. (Patients Redirecting Outcomes of Disease Utilizing Culinary Education), A Research Trial for the Food Insecure
Authors: Noah Hagen, Dr. Lisa Hamilton, Dr. Diana Zellner
Contact info: drnoahhagen@gmail.com or hhashimi@uab.edu
Description: The PRODUCE study is for our clinic patients with USDA-defined food insecurity and with uncontrolled diabetes, obesity, hypertension, or hyperlipidemia. Patients were provided with a “Prescriptions for Produce”, a free weekly package of vegetables were funded by a Columbus Public Health grant and grown locally by an urban gardening organization. Patients attended a weekly two-hour cooking class taught by a profession chef for 6 consecutive weeks. In total, the project required the coordination of five local community organizations.
Baseline and post- class HgbA1c, Weight, Waist Circumference, Depression Scale, Lipids, and Blood Pressure samples were obtained. Non-statistically significant improvements in weight, depression, cholesterol, and diastolic blood pressure were observed within the 6 weeks of the class.
Statistically significant improvements in waist size, Mediterranean diet scores, food preparation methods, and confidence in cooking were observed. Planned future directions include 3-6 month resamples and eventual publication.
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Title: CHOP: Cooking Healthily on a Penny
Authors: Hanna Hashimi
Contact info: hhashimi@uab.edu
Description: Cooking Healthily On a Penny (CHOP) is a program whose primary aim is to dispel the widely-held belief that eating balanced, healthy meals must be expensive. It is a service- learning project designed at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine (UABSOM) for the purpose of teaching medical students and community residents how to cook healthily with minimal resources. Medical students received culinary training on basic cooking techniques as well as nutritional lessons with an application toward patient populations. Students then used this knowledge to perform cooking demonstrations at the East Lake Market, a farmer’s market serving a food-insecure population within Birmingham. Community patrons engaged in nutrition conversations and received collectible recipes based on varying nutritional themes to share with their families. Overall, this program was successful in teaching medical students practical, hands- on nutrition, and all participants learned useful techniques for eating healthily on a penny.
West Virginia University Research
Title: Are We Getting The MeSSEGe? An Analysis of the Metabolic Syndrome Support and Education Group
Authors: Ken Hyden
Contact info: khyden@osteo.wvsom.edu
Description: Patients with pre-diabetes (those with metabolic syndrome) were recruited from a Family Medicine residency Clinic to meet for 7 lessons every other week to adopt a modified lower carb Mediterranean Diet for the purpose of losing weight and inches around waist, thus modifying their risk factors for developing subsequent diabetes. Medical Students were used a health coaches in this setting, by maintaining regular contact with the patients over this 3 month time period.
Patients were seen in follow-up and subsequently had other vital signs monitored for any changes. Outcomes revealed that the patients adopted new habits, lose pounds and inches, and medical students gained more confidence, skills and adaptive behaviors by sharing resources in the community to help patients adopt new habits.
West Virginia University Research
Title: Food Pantry Clientele – Helping Them to Improve their Food Choices?
Authors: Audreanna James, Alex James, Madison Hymerick MD, Rosie Lorenzetti, MD, Chef Scott Anderson
Contact info: ajames@osteo.wvsom.edu
Description: Working and teaching the underserved population how to eat more nutritiously from the Food Pantry has been a valuable community immersion experience. The Food Pantry population was surveyed for their backgrounds, their needs and current understanding of healthy food preparation. Amazingly, this population has little ease in preparing and storing foods, and we found out, little experience in trying our new foods, whether they had utensils, stoves, electricity etc. to prepare a meal. Part of the mission was also teaching Food Pantry workers in a rural community guidelines to help patients with special needs like the diabetics who come to the Pantry. Teaching cooking classes at the Pantry has benefitted the patients as well as the volunteers. Also, forging relationships with the Community garden personnel has been very valuable.
University of Alabama Research
Title: Inter-professional Culinary Training Improves Overall Impressions of Team Performance
Authors: Lawrence, JC; Knol, LL; Clem, JC; de la O,
Contact info: jclem@ua.edu
Introduction: One core competency within health-profession accreditation is that students should be able to collaborative with other health care professions. Thus, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the change in perceived team performance of students working in interprofessional teams during a five-week culinary medicine program developed by the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine.
Description: After the first and last classes, participants (medical students/residents, n=22, and nutrition students, n=14), rated the frequency in which they engaged in team-building activities on the Team Performance Scale (TPS), an 18 item valid questionnaire. A summary score was computed. Paired t-tests were completed to determine significant differences in pre- and post- intervention summary scores (α=<0.05).
Summary: After the first session, average scores for the 18 items ranged from 4.69 +/- 1.62 (resolution of conflict through compromise) to 5.44 +/- 0.84 (consistently paying attention during group discussion). After the fifth session, average item scores were all >5.0. Post-course TPS summary scores were significantly higher than pre-course scores for the entire group, medical students/residents only and nutrition students only (p <0.001, p<0.01, and p=0.02, respectively). Students working in interprofessional culinary medicine teams report improvement in team skills.
West Virginia University Education
Title: Creation of a New Culinary and Lifestyle Medicine Track at WVU
Authors: Konrad Nau MD; Madison Humerick MD; Jane Tuttle; Ella Bushman; Jasmin Tharakan; Shelby Shajamon
Contact info: cannarellar@wvumedicine.org
Description: West Virginia has the second highest rate of diabetes in the nation, is one of the most obese states in USA and has one of highest rates of metabolic deaths (1). Our WVUSOM mission is to “prepare our learners to be resilient, and confident as they care for people, conduct research and transform lives.” (2). Latest movement in medical student education has implied that the teaching medical students culinary skills can transform the health care environment with emphasis on management of many chronic diseases (3). West Virginia University is the first medical School to offer a dedicated track in the medical school curriculum to Culinary and Lifestyle Medicine education and values.
This poster outlines steps taken to create the track and get it going over nearly 2 years of time.
University of Massachusetts Research
Title: The anti- inflammatory diet for IBS
Authors: Lisa McGonigal; Sandi Pruitt, PhD, MPH; Michael Bowen, MD, MPH; Milette Siler, RD, LD; Jaclyn Albin, MD
Contact info: Lisa.Jo.McGonigal@umassmwmorial.org
Description: Nutritional IBD regimen developed as adjunct therapy to help restore gut microbiome balance:
1. Restricts pro-inflammatory carbohydrates
2. Maximizes intake of immunomodulating pre- and probiotics
3. Modifies dietary fatty acids to restore intestinal tight junction integrity
Anti-inflammatory diet can be an effective and meaningful adjunctive therapy in treatment of IBD 2. Culinary Medicine can facilitate behavior change to augment IBD dietary interventions 3. 56% of IBD-AID group decreased or discontinued IBD-related medications while 80% of controls increased or added medications. Study highlights need for larger-scale research to draft IBD nutrition guidelines and definitively demonstrate utility of preventive Clinical Nutrition and Culinary Medicine in Western medicine.
University of Texas – Houston
Title: The Nourish Program: An innovative model for cooking, ghardening, and clinical care skill enhancement for dietetics students
Authors: McWhorter, John
Contact info: John.Wesley.McWhorter@uth.tmc.edu
Description: Although “seed-to-plate” nutrition interventions are popular, cooking and gardening skills are not currently part of the formal dietetic curricula. The Nourish Program at the University of Texas School of Public Health (UTSPH) seeks to address this training gap The Nourish Program includes three integrated facilities.The Research and Demonstration Kitchen enables faculty members to teach courses on healthy cooking techniques, nutrition therapies, and chronic disease prevention and treatment. The Holistic Garden offers classes on herbs, fruit, and vegetable gardening, and messaging around the health benefits of these foods. Produce harvested from the garden is prepared in the kitchen, thus, providing a sustainable seed-to-plate-to-prevention model. The Clinical Simulation Lab delivers a realistic practice environment that students can build skills in the nutrition care process. Case studies from simulation lab are integrated into cooking and gardening programming. There are formal courses in cooking, gardening, and patient simulation for dietetic interns, diabetes, and pediatric nutrition assessment workshops, community cooking classes, and a children’s gardening and cooking camps 4. Summary The Nourish Program not only enhances the experiential component of dietetics education but further prepare dietetic interns for systems-level thinking and integrated practice, as well as innovative job opportunities in a changing dietetics landscape.
UT Southwestern
Title: Food as Medicine: A Pilot Nutrition and Cooking Curriculum for Children of Participants in a Community- Based Culinary Medicine Class
Authors: Marshall, Haley
Contact info: Haley.Marshall@UTSouthwestern.edu
Description: In resource-poor families faced with food insecurity, children are often a barrier to healthy change. This intervention aims address these barriers and promote healthy eating and cooking habits through a series of educational nutrition and cooking lessons administered to the children of food pantry clients while their parents are concurrently attending a community-based Culinary Medicine cooking class. Each lesson in this student-developed curriculum is structured to present ideas and concepts that are synergistic with those being taught in the adult class. The curriculum includes four components: an educational nutrition lesson, hands-on cooking and tasting experiences, a craft, and a game that are both designed to reinforce the concepts introduced in the educational portion. By involving these children in cooking experiences and exposing them to new foods, flavors and ingredients, we hope to provide them with the education and skills needed to spark an interest and prime them to be more open and accepting of the changes that their parents will hopefully make in their home kitchens.
NYU Langone Campus Education
Title: Culinary Medicine at Weill Cornell: Taking a Bite out of the Big Apple
Authors: Mathieson, Kristen
Contact info: Krm9046@nyp.org
Description: NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medicine are committed to delivering the highest quality care in order to best serve the needs of our local, regional, national and global communities. In Fall 2017, we launch a 5-week culinary medicine elective for 12 medical students. For our elective, the Tulane curriculum was augmented with additional case studies and recipes reflecting the specific communities, cultures and ethnicities we serve. Upon completion of the course, 100% of the students agreed that this course should be a mandatory part of medical school curriculum. Having little prior knowledge of medical nutrition therapy, the students noted that they felt more confident recommending nutrition care plans and motivating patients, as well as themselves, to focus on healthy eating. The course ultimately elevates the importance of a multi-disciplinary approach to patient care and our medical students confirmed that “the interdisciplinary approach to the course was executed very well – our physicians, dietitians and food experts made an incredible team.”
Pacific Northwest (Yakima Valley Inter- Professional Education Collaboration (YVIPEC)
Title: Culinary Medicine Program and Inter- Professional Education
Authors: Elaina Moon, David L. Gee, Kathleen Briggs Early
Contact info: Healthymoon@outlook.com
Description: Five different professional programs (DO medical students, Pharmacy, Nursing, Physician Assistant, and Dieticians) participated in an inter-professional culinary educational endeavor. They had five culinary medicine sessions were offered to these students during the 2017-18 academic year.
Topics covered were the Mediterranean Diet, Plant-based nutrition, diet in the prevention and control of diabetes, the DASH diet, and healthier diets for Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. The format of each session included an academic presentation, a food-centered presentation by a culinary expert, preparation of entrees fitting the theme of the session by teams of two or three students, brief presentation of completed entrees by the students, and consumption of the entrees. Teams of students were deliberately mixed to enhance inter-professional collaboration and education.
West Virginia University Education
Title: Does an apple a day keep the doctor away? Nutrition and Physical Activity Curriculum for Medical Staff
Authors: Dustin Myers; Madison Humerick, MD
Contact info: djmeyers@wvumedicine.org
Description: Educational efforts were conducted to teach the nursing staff as well as the residents at the Family Medical Clinic about the Mediterranean Diet; evaluating their own behavior surrounding eating; offering food demos for the staff to try new foods which they may never had eaten. Because faculty and residents needed to understand why faculty were making extra efforts to educate patients.
UT Southwestern
Title: Building a Food Foundation: Developing a Four-Week Nutrition Elective for Senior Medical Student
Authors: H. Nguyen
Contact info: Hali.Nguyen@UTSouthwestern.edu
Description: The current nutrition curriculum at many medical schools is lacking or inadequate. This student-developed curriculum aims to address some of the gaps by providing fourth-year medical students with the basic knowledge and skills to enable informed discussions with their patients about food. Information is provided via a primarily independent learning model with opportunities to individualize topics based on a student’s career plans. Themes include the influence of policy on nutrition in the United States, nutrition epidemiology and evaluation of nutrition research, and research supporting the DASH diet and the Mediterranean diet. Students will also improve nutrition counseling skills by learning how to obtain a diet history and working through cases. During the rotation, students additionally will have culinary medicine opportunities in the community and on campus. This flexible, individualized curriculum strives to enhance student engagement in nutrition curriculum and improve ability to provide guidance to patients regarding food’s relationship to health.
Tulane University School of Medicine
Title: Hands-on culinary teaching versus bedside nutrition counseling in reducing 30-day readmission rates for congestive heart failure
Authors: Razavi, A
Contact info: arazavi@tulane.edu
Description: This is presentation of material on a randomized controlled trial held at Tulane surrounding the question -Can hands-on Mediterranean diet culinary teaching in the kitchen, delivered in the community setting, reduce the incidence of 30-day readmission to the hospital in individuals with a primary diagnosis of congestive heart failure? Randomized-controlled clinical trial with 6 or 12 week cooking education intervention, single crossover after 90 days, 3, 6, 12 month follow-up post intervention involving cooking frequency, diet, and social network. Collecting data through April and May. Preliminary data demonstrates that patient participation in hands-on culinary modules decreased 30-day readmissions for CHF to a greater degree than standard of care bedside nutrition counseling.
Preliminary Findings revealed Hands-on culinary teaching in the kitchen setting reduced the number of 30-day readmissions to a greater degree than standard of care bedside nutrition counseling. Such results indicate that culinary teaching can not only improve quality of care measures, but can also improve biological markers and symptoms in the setting of congestive heart failure. Teaching kitchens and further infrastructure must thus be built in place to offer Mediterranean diet-based culinary education to patients with congestive heart failure.
NYU Medical Center
Title: Kids Nutrition Awareness Project to Prevent Obesity in Children
Authors: Saeed, Sidra
Contact info: Sidra.Saeed@nyumc.org
Description: Obesity in kids can lead to increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer and asthma. Studies found that one out of every five child between the age of 5 and 14 is obese in our program’s geographic location, Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Lack of knowledge about healthy nutrition and diet is one of the root causes behind obesity. So, our team focused on raising awareness about the quality of the diet in children via various learning sessions directed by the family medicine residents. The activity included educating kids and parents to develop healthy eating habits using ‘My Plate’ model and improving kids behavior using ‘5-2-1-0’ model which is a nationally recognized program for preventing obesity. We held two sessions at Family Physician – FHC where we shared recipes for making healthy snacks in addition to displaying posters that showed how the healthy plate should look. We learned that most of the participants lacked basic information about what was a healthy diet. We also observed that participants were interested in getting specific insights to a healthy diet; for example moms were particularly interested in knowing the healthy and economical options available to them. We want to identify factors that contribute to the obesity in children in our community, as well as specific community triggers for unhealthy eating to be specific in our learning talks. With better understanding of the contributing factors to unhealthy eating habits and through the continued community talks we believe that we can raise awareness in the community to the obesity problem in children and improve the communities’ awareness of what are healthy eating choices.
West Virginia University Education
Title: Culinary Interest group Activities as a recruitment and educational tool for medical students
Authors: Amy Schattel, Kathryn Baker MS3, Kara Bird MS2, Denisse Arteaga MS2, Morgan Bush MS2
Contact info: Ams0064@mix.wvu.edu
Description: This is a report on the variety of activities that can be incorporated into a busy pre-clinical years to introduce medical students to Culinary Medicine topics. Utilizing local campus medical specialists, and dieticians, students were introduced to the strength of spending time with like-minded students and stimulating interest in doing nutritional education
University of Utah
Title: Residents Meet to Eat
Authors: Ciera Sears
Contact info: Ciera.sears4@gmail.com
Description: As part of a wellness curriculum, residents shopped, and cooked together. Dieticians present discussed the nutrient value of the meals taken in and residents learned to be more mindful of food prepared and eaten together.
Ohio State University
Title: A Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) and the Health Eating Index-2010 Analysis (HEI- 2010) Describe Dietary Intake of Students of the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine Curriculum (GCCMC)
Authors: Sicker K, Landholm D, Shaikhkhalil A, Robertson-Boyd L, Nelson N, Hamilton L, Habash D
Contact info: Kelsey.sicker@osumc.edu
Description: This study analyzed Food Frequency Questionnaires (FFQ) from three groups; (1) medical students from The Ohio State University before taking the GCCM curriculum, (2) medical students after completing the curriculum, and (3) combination of medical students and medical residents from Nationwide Children’s Hospital prior to completing curriculum. Healthy Eating Index-2010 (HEI) scores are a comparison tool across 12 categories that normalizes data/1000 kcals ingested based on adequacy and moderation. Simple t-tests were used to compare the means of each groups’ HEI- 2010 score to US adult averages. All three groups scored significantly better than national averages for overall HEI-2010 score and multiple other categories. All groups consumed more sodium compared to national averages. Improvements after completing the culinary curriculum were suggested by scores for greens and beans, seafood, and plant proteins becoming significantly higher than US averages. Medical trainees, despite being more aware of healthy eating compared to the public, still face challenges. Practical nutrition education is therefore relevant not only for patient care but also for the health, wellbeing, and resilience of medical trainees.
Ohio State University
Title: Unique Model of Implementation of Culinary Medicine Program
Authors: Kelsey Sicker, Dain Landholm, Laura Robertson- Boyd, Diane Habash, Nicholas Nelson, Lisa Hamilton, and Ala Shaikhkhalil
Contact info: Kelsey.sicker@osumc.edu
Description: Despite the need, there is a shortage of culinary medicine programs related to real and perceived barriers. This project reviewed implementation at The Ohio State University in order to provide learning points that could become part of a comprehensive how-to guide for establishing a culinary curriculum in other institutions. The process began with medical students seeking culinary education. In partnership with a local chef and funding from alumni, a “Culinary Boot Camp” ran for five years. During this time, medical student leaders with other collaborations and guidance ultimately implemented Tulane’s Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine curriculum in the fall of 2016. Upon review we categorized aspects that were critical components of this experience. Main successes boiled down to focusing on students as pioneers, collaborating with existing programs, being flexible with space and timeframes, utilizing student testimonials for marketing and funding. Our goal is to incorporate experiences of other programs to create a comprehensive guide. In order to increase physician comfort with nutritional discussions, culinary programs must be implemented and barriers must be overcome.
Arnot Ogden Medical Center Education and Research
Title: An Interdisciplinary Dietary Program Directed by Cooperative Efforts of Nursing and Medical Students
Authors: Samuel Theis, Erin Tracy, Beth Dollinger
Contact info: samuel.theis@med.lecom.edu
Introduction: The Healthy Kitchens program emphasizes that healthy lifestyle choices and a diversified diet are important aspects of overall patient health. By integrating nursing students into the Healthy Kitchens program, we found that both nursing and medical students stand to benefit from working together to address dietary health interventions. Methods: A prospective, multi-site cohort study was implemented to address competency and knowledge retention for a wide variety of dietary principles and habits, via surveys both before and after completion of the program.
Results: 118 responses generated among LECOM students participating in the AOMC Healthy Kitchens program revealed that compared to other sites without nursing students, LECOM participants were significantly more likely to consume vegetables and fruit on the MedDiet score (OR 1.41, 95%CI 1.00- 1.99, p=0.048).
Conclusion: These findings support the hypothesis that a multidisciplinary Healthy Kitchens class can improve both personal and clinical outcomes compared to non-integrated classes.
University of Texas – Houston Research
Title: Machine learning- supported propensity score analysis of medical student competencies in patient nutrition education: multi-site cohort comparison with UT- Houston
Authors: Helen Burks; John McWhorter, RD; Anish Patnaik; Jordan Shull; Alexandra Ngo; Renato Guerrieri; Annat Rabinovich; Nadine Naguib; Tu Dan Nguyen, MD;1 Charles Chassay, MD; Laura Moore, MEd, RDN, LD; Shreela Sharma, PhD, RDN, LD; Deanna M. Hoelscher, PhD, RDN, LD; Justin Tran, Dominique Monlezun, MD, PhD, MPH
Contact info: Dominique.Monlezun@gmail.com
Description: Cooking for Health Optimization with Patients (CHOP, NIH NCT03443635) was launched as the first multi-national cohort study to monitor baseline and improve student diets and competencies in patient nutrition education as a preventative cardiology measure through hands-on cooking and nutrition education. Propensity score adjusted multivariable regression was augmented by 43 supervised machine learning algorithms to assess students outcomes from UT-Houston (UTH) versus the remaining study site to optimize treatment application to them.
This machine learning-augmented causal inference analysis provides the first known baseline results to compare medical students nationally in their diets and competencies in nutrition education from UTH. Additional studies are required with more students and sites to guide personalization of hands-on cooking and nutrition curriculum for UTH and each site to produce optimal student and eventually preventive cardiology outcomes when they educate patients in those classes.
University of Michigan Education
Title: Pilot of Culinary Medicine Elective at University of Michigan Medical School
Authors: Anita Vasuvedan, Keerthi Gondy, Megan McLeod Carissa Orizondo, Roma Gianchandani, Brigid Gregg
Contact info: anitavas@med.umich.edu
Description: The Culinary Medicine elective at the University of Michigan is an abbreviated two-week version of Tulane Medical School’s Cooking for Health Optimization with Patients curriculum. This course teaches fourth-year medical students cooking techniques through a combination of didactic and hands-on cooking lessons. A session on food insecurity was also included to remedy the gap in medical education regarding the relevance of food insecurity to health. Self-reported surveys, including a survey on the food insecurity session, were administered before and after the course. Results indicated that students felt more comfortable with counseling patients about various diets and portion control. Additionally, students reported a deeper understanding of how food insecurity presents, how it relates to health, and how to connect food insecure patients to appropriate resources. Looking forward, we hope to use this data to improve future iterations of the elective and continue adapting it to students’ needs and interests.
Texas Tech University HSC
Title: TTUHSC Culinary Medicine Elective: Modifications in Course Curriculum and Effects on Student Competencies
Authors: S. Deleon, Kathy Chauncey, Betsy Jones, .E. Vengalil
Contact info: Elisa.vengalil@ttubsc.edu
Description: The purpose of this project was to modify the original TTUHSC SOM Culinary Medicine elective to focus on developing students’ skills in patient counseling, culinary skills, and medical nutrition knowledge. As participants in the first version of the course in Fall 2016, we decided to expand the size of the elective from twenty to forty students and to incorporate new topics such as women’s nutrition, the basics of food budgeting, and bulk meal preparing.
Surveys were given after each event to track participants’ confidence in various competencies. Based on our findings, we identified several improvements that could be made for future runs of the elective and concluded that the Culinary Medicine elective makes an impact on the confidence that future physicians trained at TTUHSC have in motivating patients to manage their chronic diseases.
