Culinary Medicine Elective

Purpose and Rationale for the Course: The purpose of this course is to provide students with evidence-based, practical knowledge in order to better understand nutrition and how it relates to the health of patients and their communities through hands-on cooking classes and the educational modules from the Culinary Medicine Specialist Board.

The GW Office of Clinical Pubic Health Programs has licensed the Health meets Food curriculum, which makes GW part of a consortium of over 60 health professional schools teaching this curriculum, sharing best practices, and participating in evaluation research on the impact of the curriculum. More information about the program can be found at https://culinarymedicine.org.

"I would recommend everyone to take this class because no matter what specialty you go into, this information will be relevant and useful as a provider to your patients. You will have the opportunity to gain the skills to be able to talk to your patients about their diet and what modifications they can make….I also loved just the camaraderie of our group in cooking together every day"
"I loved this course. It exceeded the expectations I had, both in terms of educational value and enjoyment. I am coming away with more concrete knowledge about nutrition and how it translates into clinical care, more personal confidence in the kitchen, and many new recipes to share with friends and patients!"
"I firmly believe now more than ever that culinary medicine principles should be applied by all doctors in all facets of patient care and really believe that this course will help medical students understand how important this is and how much of an impact they can really make on patients' lives with the knowledge they gain through this class."
“My favorite part of the course was how well integrated education and cases were incorporated into each day. It never felt like we were being lectured at, but when I look back on the past two weeks I feel like I learned and retained a lot of practical information. The provided food beforehand (especially all of the spices / dry ingredients) also was helpful in ensuring I had everything I needed to start the course on the right foot”
"I also really loved the guest speakers who showed how they applied culinary medicine to their clinical practice because I am very interested in doing that in the future, so it helped getting concrete examples of real life physicians who incorporate culinary med, and their journey to getting there."

Course Description:
The pre-clinical curriculum addresses nutrition topics mainly from a biochemical or epidemiological perspective. This curriculum is intended to address nutrition from a more in-depth, clinical perspective through a series of modules. Each module is composed of a pre-classroom online lesson, one journal article and a quiz. Following this preparation, students will start the class with a case study.

Each case study employs principles learned in the preceding coursework and is comprised of a realistic patient. Students will then work together in teams and do real-time research to devise a patient-centered, evidence-based plan as part of the case-based discussions. Then, each student team will cook pre-determined recipes and present it to their colleagues. With the conclusion of cooking, the recipes and cases are discussed over a shared meal. There will also be a written paper asking the student to reflect on their learning experience during the elective. This project is intended to enhance students’ recognition of the socio-economic and cultural context within which patients make decisions about their health.