Combining Culinary Medicine With Integrative Medicine in Medical Curriculum: A Novel Community-Centric Approach

Historically, medical school curriculums have not addressed applications of medical nutrition therapy (MNT) in patient care plans. In 2020, an elective pilot lifestyle medicine course, "Food and Nutrition as Medicine (FANAM)," was implemented at Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine Carolinas (VCOM-Carolinas) using a community-centric model.

Teach medical students skills in nutrition education, culinary techniques, patient-centered care through intersectional lenses of culture, available resources, and health literacy.

FANAM's founders were a multidisciplinary team of physicians, a registered dietitian, a nurse and a dietetic technician. Twenty students were in the initial cohort. FANAM utilized physicians and community leaders as mentors who taught through hands-on and didactic exercises. Pre- and post-Likert scales assessed FANAM's impact on students' confidence in implementing patient-centered nutrition education. Wilcoxon Signed Rank Tests analyzed survey results with calculated P-value <.05.

Qualitative assessments demonstrated that 100% of participants believed nutrition education beyond the standard curriculum was necessary. 95% of participants felt confident in their understanding of nutrition and ability to counsel standardized patients after course completion.

These results indicate that FANAM provided opportunities for students to enhance both knowledge of MNT and practical applications of nutrition education to benefit patients.