MedStar Health: Culinary Medicine and Nutrition Curriculum for Residents
Ardmore Institute of Health (AIH) is delighted to support MedStar Health’s Culinary Medicine and Nutrition Learning Curriculum for Residents in Training, designed to equip residents to treat diet-related diseases and chronic conditions.
Despite nutrition’s essential role in preventing chronic disease, most physicians feel inadequately trained to offer nutrition counseling. MedStar Health’s curriculum is bridging this gap by empowering residents with the knowledge and tools needed to provide Whole Person Care.
The curriculum, which has been developed and adapted from other successful programs, includes lecture series, videos, culinary skill workshops, and patient cases for motivational interviewing. It encompasses five content approaches that address varying learning experiences and clinical needs: referential (academic/scientific papers), didactic, procedural (knife skills), experiential (meal prep), and simulation (residents interacting with actor patients) learning modalities. Residents who complete the program should:
Understand nutrition’s role in improving health outcomes
Gain confidence in speaking to patients about healthy cooking
Master basic hands-on culinary skills
Translate current research in nutrition science to practical implementation
Become familiar with flavors from multicultural cuisines and use this to support patients
Practice cultural humility
Acquire motivational interviewing and SMART goal-setting skills
Use culinary medicine as a modality to advance health equity
“I now make nutritional recommendations more confidently and have already referred a couple of patients to culinary medicine. It is a really valuable experience.” – Internal Medicine MWHC Resident
“I see myself referring more patients to culinary medicine…I just had my first referral!” – Cardiology Fellow at MWHC
“It has given me hope that Lifestyle Medicine and changes in diet can drastically impact health and motivates me to do more in-depth counseling on it with my patients.” – Family Medicine Resident at MFSMC
“It has given me time and space to learn and grow as a physician to be more creative, thoughtful, and specific to counsel patients about diet and exercise.” – Internal Medicine-Peds Resident at MGUH
Moving forward, MedStar Health will offer ACLM’s LMRC, developed with grant support from AIH, across its healthcare system, which will embed the Culinary Medicine and Nutrition Learning Curriculum. In the future, a manual and resources will be freely available to all residency programs interested in replicating MedStar’s model.
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