Culinary Medicine Training in Core Medical School Curriculum Improved Medical Student Nutrition Knowledge and Confidence in Providing Nutrition Counseling.

Background: Elective culinary medicine education has become popular to help fill important gaps in physician nutrition training. The implementation and outcomes among the inaugural cohort of medical students who received culinary medicine training as a required component of medical school curriculum at the University of Maryland School of Medicine are described. Methods: Following a series of elective pilot sessions, culinary medicine training was provided to all first-year medical students in the 2019-2020 academic year. The 3-hour training included evidence-based nutrition lecture, cooking simple recipes, and group discussion of the application to personal and patient care. Pre-/postsession questionnaires assessed nutrition knowledge, skills, and attitudes as well as nutritional counseling confidence. Paired t-tests estimated mean differences in outcomes pre- and posttraining. Qualitative data were subjected to thematic analysis. Results: Overall, 119 of 125 (95.2%) students provided pre- and posttraining outcomes data. All nutritional and patient counseling outcomes improved (P < .05). Themes of being better prepared to address healthy eating barriers in patient care and personal ability to make healthy dietary changes were noted in qualitative analysis. Conclusion: One session of culinary medicine training in core medical student curriculum was feasible and improved medical student nutrition knowledge, skills, and attitudes and confidence in patient nutrition counseling.

Interprofessional Culinary Medicine Training Enhanced Nutrition Knowledge, Nutrition Counseling Confidence, and Interprofessional Experience.

Introduction: Culinary medicine training combining evidence-based nutrition instruction with experiential cooking application has improved nutrition knowledge, skills, and attitudes in the professional and personal lives of medical students. However, interprofessional culinary training remains largely unstudied among professional students who will be involved in collaborative patient care. The goal of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of an elective interprofessional culinary medicine course for students in the medical, pharmacy, social work, nursing, law, and dentistry schools at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Methods: The interprofessional culinary medicine course was offered in-person at the teaching kitchen of the Nova Institute for Health in 2020 and virtually in 2021 during the COVID pandemic. The training featured five workshops combining instruction in a variety of popular diets, cooking a meal inspired by the diet in focus, and group discussion. Paired t tests were utilized to evaluate changes in pre-/post-training nutrition and interprofessional experience outcomes. Linear regression models were constructed to compare outcomes between in-person and virtual delivery. Results: A total of 62 students participated in the culinary medicine training. Confidence in all nutrition knowledge, skills, and attitudes, as well as interprofessional experience outcomes, improved after the training (p < 0.05). Similar improvements were noted in most outcomes with in-person and virtual delivery in linear regression modeling. Discussion: Interprofessional culinary medicine training is feasible, and virtual delivery may help enhance replicability in other settings.