Medical schools, health systems, and nutrition and dietetics programs are using different approaches to integrate nutrition into medical and health professions training. The programs below show what implementation can look like in practice, from culinary medicine and teaching kitchens to longitudinal curriculum integration, clinical education, and RDN partnership.
University of Utah
Model: Longitudinal interprofessional nutrition education and culinary medicine
The University of Utah demonstrates how nutrition education can be integrated across classroom, teaching-kitchen, and clinical settings. Its model includes culinary medicine experiences, required and elective coursework, student-led clinic opportunities, graduate medical education, and interprofessional training that prepares learners to provide more whole-person, team-based nutrition care.
Boston Medical Center and Boston University
Model: Healthcare system and academic partnership using culinary medicine, teaching kitchens, clinician education, and Food as Medicine infrastructure
Boston Medical Center and Boston University show how a health system and academic institution can partner to bring nutrition into medical education through Eat to Treat, a hands-on culinary medicine seminar for first-year medical students that later expanded to practicing clinicians. The model connects nutrition science, culinary skills, counseling, social determinants of health, interprofessional collaboration, and the role of RDNs in patient care.
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Model: Integrated MD curriculum with RDN partnership and case-based learning
The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health shows how nutrition education can be woven across the MD curriculum rather than limited to one course. Since 2016, the MD ForWard Curriculum has included more than 65 hours of nutrition education planned and taught in partnership with medical educators, scientists, and RDNs, helping students connect nutrition to clinical decision-making, interdisciplinary care, and referral.
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