Culinary Medicine Clerkship

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 curricular development and teaching, hands-on cooking classes, and the educational modules from Health meets Food Culinary Medicine Curriculum. The GW Office of Clinical Public 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

In 2017 The George Washington University School of Medicine implemented an innovative Culinary Medicine curriculum for 3rd and 4th year students to equip future clinicians with skills necessary to build confidence and expertise with addressing prevention and diet related chronic diseases through an experiential learning modality.

"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:

This clerkship builds off of our established and highly sought after IDIS 307 elective and allows 1 to 2 students to participate in a 4 week clerkship to develop advanced Culinary Medicine skills by engaging with high quality didactic lectures and modules, improving counseling and cooking efficacy, leading and teaching cooking classes for community, trainees, and faculty, and engaging with a scholarly project opportunity.