Due to a growing awareness of the impact of nutrition on health, some medical schools are introducing elective courses in culinary medicine, an emerging field that focuses on providing evidence-based food recommendations to patients.
Culinary medicine courses may be taught by a faculty team including a physician, chef and dietitian. These classes typically allow medical students to gain hands-on cooking experience so that they can learn how to prepare meals that are consistent with the dietary restrictions of people with chronic health conditions such as diabetes.
In addition, these courses sometimes include field trips to neighborhoods where grocery stores are scarce, so-called ” food deserts,” so students understand the challenges faced by patients who live in these areas.
[Ask about a medical school’s wellness curriculum during admissions interviews.]
Sophia Gauthier says the hands-on food preparation part of her culinary medicine course at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences made her more aware of how much time and money it can take to make healthy meals.
Gauthier, a third-year medical student, says that knowledge will help her to assist patients who are time-pressed, cash-strapped or both, as she will be able to suggest ways that they can work around these limitations.
Professors at medical schools that offer this type of course say it is useful for every aspiring physician, no matter what type of medical career he or she intends to pursue.
[Learn why there are more integrative medicine courses at medical schools.]
Dr. Seema Kakar, course director for culinary medicine and associate clinical professor of medicine at George Washington, says culinary medicine courses are highly relevant to aspiring medical specialists in fields where a non-nutritious diet has been proven to increase the risk of disease, such as cancer medicine, gastroenterology and cardiology.
Experts say culinary medicine courses are particularly important for aspiring primary care physicians because they form long-term relationships with patients and are often asked for diet advice.
“Patients are asking their health care professionals more questions about foods and diet than ever before and the fact is that medical and dental students haven’t had much training on it,” Karl Guggenmos, a dean emeritus at Johnson & Wales University, said via email. “Culinary medicine is a practical discipline and is concerned about the patient’s immediate needs. It’s been documented that specific eating guidelines may be equal to or even more effective than prescription medications.”
Guggenmos, who helped establish an academic partnership between Johnson & Wales’ culinary school and the Tulane University School of Medicine, says scientific research showing that gut health affects overall health is an additional reason for students to take a course in culinary medicine.
Here are a few other reasons why experts say medical school applicants might want to explore a school that offers a culinary medicine course.
[Find out how medical schools are responding to the obesity crisis.]
1. Prevalence of diet-related illnesses: The leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2015 was heart disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and one of the most significant risk factors is obesity.
The CDC statistics have led many doctors to the conclusion that they need to provide patients with clear, nonjudgmental guidance on how to control their weight and maintain a healthy diet.
Dr. Timothy Harlan, executive director of Tulane’s Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine, says he often instructs health care providers at his lectures to think about how many of the patients they’ve recently treated are dealing with health concerns that are aggravated by their diets.
2. Importance of preventative medicine: “The traditional medical approach of treatment after a chronic disease has set in isn’t working for society,” says Tomi Dreibelbis, senior director for educational affairs at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine.
She says doctors should not only treat a disease once it is diagnosed but also mitigate the risk of disease by counseling patients about their dietary habits.
3. Creative solutions: Culinary medicine courses provide students with strategies they can use to help patients who are struggling with new dietary restrictions and wondering what they can eat given these limitations, says Hope Barkoukis, an associate professor and interim chair of the department of nutrition at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
“It’s really about expanding food choices instead of being the dictator who says ‘you can’t eat this’ or ‘you can’t eat that,'” says Barkoukis, who holds a doctorate in nutrition and metabolism.
Barkoukis says that giving patients blanket prohibitions about food isn’t nearly as effective as giving them suggestions about foods they’d enjoy that are also healthy.
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Take Culinary Medicine Courses in Medical School originally appeared on usnews.com
