A Culinary Medicine Elective for Clinically Experienced Medical Students: A Pilot Study

The Effectiveness, Impact, and Viability of Culinary Medicine in Medical Programs: A Systematic Review

“…35 Ten studies involved medical students only, 28, 30-36, 38, 39 ve of which evaluated a single year cohort of students rather than a mixed cohort between years one through four of their medical program. 28,30,31,38,39 Two studies involved medical students and medical registrars, 35,37 and one also included nutrition students. 37 All 12 studies had a didactic lecture component to their course and hands on culinary skill lessons and collaborative cooking sessions.…”

“…28-36, 38, 39 Most studies assessed medical students' culinary skills (n=2), 36,38 nutrition attitudes (n=6), 29,32,33,36,38,39 and provision of nutrition counseling to patients (n=5). 29,31,33,38,39 Some studies assessed student collaboration amongst other populations, such as people in the community (n=4) 28,33,38,39 and other healthcare professionals, such as dietitians or future physicians (n=7). [29][30][31][36][37][38][39] In many of the studies practical nutrition education in the form of a culinary medicine program was compared against traditional nutritional education in the form of solely didactic teaching(n=7) 29,30,[33][34][35][36][37] and in some studies there was a focus on improving interprofessional and doctor-patient relationships (n=7).…”

“…31,33,38,39 Preand post-course surveys from six of 12 of the included studies identi ed changes in personal health behaviors 8,32,33,36,38,39 and two studies reported student improvements in their ability to identify food by visual inspection. 36,39 Five of the 12 studies failed to mention any negative or non-signi cant outcomes within their results. 28,29,[35][36][37] Four studies utilised interventions that were adopted by multiple faculties.…”

“…28-31, 33, 35 Only four studies explicitly stated that the interventions met or exceeded the recommendation that US medical education include 25 hours in nutrition education. 32,34,35,37,40 The curriculum offered to students in each study varied by session layout, duration, type of instructor/instructors, and whether courses were offered as an elective (n=11) 28,29,[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39] or non-elective course (n=1). 30 Half of the interventions were based on an established program, CHOP from Tulane University (n=6) 28, [32][33][34][35]37 and others used an original program (n=6).…”

“…29-31, 36, 38, 39 Four studies reported modi cations in their curriculum between cohorts with all changes made to address student feedback. 30,31,38,39 Nine studies had chef instructors, 28,29,31,34,[36][37][38][39] ve studies included physicians as instructors; 29,31,35,37,39 six studies included instructors from the school of medicine faculty, 28-30, 35, 37, 38 and ve studies from the school of nutrition faculty; 29,31,34,35,37 three studies involved instruction from hospital dietitians; 36,37,39 and two studies included medical students teaching peers. 36,39 Three studies included a service component where medical students taught and/or served members of the community.…”