The Institute recently welcomed more than 125 first- and second-year medical students from the University of Maryland School of Medicine for its new culinary medicine workshop, Culinary Health & Medicine (CH&M) program. This program is a partnership between the Institute, the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Terra’s Kitchen, and Performance FoodService-Maryland. The CH&M programs work to revolutionize medical student training by embedding this instructive and experiential culinary nutrition class in the required Introduction to Clinical Medicine course. During the class, students explore culinary medicine applications in patient care, examine popular diets, discover scientific evidence supporting the Mediterranean diet, and practice preparing healthy recipes in a hands-on cooking lab.
After the course, 87% of the students said that they would utilize the new information in their own lives, while 80% of the students said that it would also help them offer practical nutrition advice to future patients. The Institute will continue hosting the workshops through the winter with plans of rolling out a more substantial training for the next incoming cohort of medical students in 2020.