Boston Medical Center and Boston University

Boston Medical Center (BMC), a safety-net hospital and academic medical center, has a long history of integrating food and nutrition into healthcare. As an early adopter of Food as Medicine, BMC established one of the country’s first therapeutic food pantries in 2001 and later expanded its programs to include a rooftop farm and teaching kitchen. Building on this patient-focused work, BMC partnered with its academic affiliate, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, to bring nutrition into medical education through a practical, hands-on model. This partnership led to Eat to Treat, a six-session culinary medicine seminar for first-year medical students and later expanded to include practicing clinicians through a virtual continuing education format.

Hosted through the BMC Teaching Kitchen, Eat to Treat connects nutrition science, culinary skills, counseling techniques, social determinants of health and interprofessional collaboration to equip future and practicing clinicians with practical skills to support nutrition in patient care.

Model at a Glance

Model: Collaboration between a healthcare system and academic institution to deliver hands-on culinary medicine training in a teaching kitchen
Audience: Medical students and practicing clinicians
Delivery: Six-session in-person medical student seminar and virtual clinician course through cooking demonstrations, hands-on food preparation and case-based learning.
RDN role: Course ideation, development, facilitation, and research and assessment, with expertise in nutrition, food as medicine, patient care, and clinical operations.
Key takeaway: Hands-on food and culinary learning can help medical students and clinicians translate nutrition science into personal health behaviors and patient care, including nutrition counseling, addressing food-related social needs and engaging interprofessional teams.

The Approach

The Eat to Treat course was developed to strengthen learners’ own health behaviors and build confidence in patient nutrition assessment, counseling, and interprofessional collaboration, including partnering with and referring to RDNs. The model translates nutrition science into practical food preparation skills for disease prevention and management. Learners prepare food, discuss patient cases, explore social determinants of health, and consider how nutrition care can be integrated into clinical practice.

The medical student seminar included six sessions focused on disease-specific nutrition science, practical food preparation and clinical nutrition skills. Students learned to translate nutrition concepts into practice while developing skills such as conducting dietary recalls, motivational interviewing, and reefing patients to RDNs.

An adapted version of the course was later offered to practicing clinicians, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and RDNs looking to develop culinary medicine skills, in a shorter virtual format, showing how the model can be modified for different audiences and delivery settings.

Key components include:

• Hands-on food preparation through culinary medicine interventions in a teaching kitchen
• Basic nutrition education related to disease specific dietary guidelines
• Patient counseling techniques, such as 24-hour diet recall and motivational interviewing
• Screening and addressing social determinants of health, including food access, time scarcity and limited kitchen resources
• Interprofessional collaboration and the role and value of RDNs in patient care
• Case-based learning
• Cultural humility and patient-centered care
• Connection to BMC’s broader Food as Medicine infrastructure, including the Teaching Kitchen, Preventive Food Pantry, and Rooftop Farm

The Role of RDNs

RDNs are key to the Eat to Treat model. They helped develop, facilitate, and assess the course and advocated for the scope of RDN practice and team-based management of nutrition-related diseases.

As a result, learners gain practical nutrition knowledge while also understanding how RDNs contribute to care, connect patients to food and nutrition resources and support appropriate referral pathways.

Results and Evidence

A published study of Eat to Treat, Eat to Treat: A Culinary Medicine Program for First-Year Medical Students, reported that 53 first-year medical students participated in the program across five semesters from 2017 to 2019.

Among medical students who completed both pre- and post-course surveys, measures of self-efficacy in nutrition assessment and management improved by the final session. Students reported increased confidence in areas such as assessing patients’ diet and nutrition, counseling patients on food and nutrition-related diseases, addressing social determinants of health, and understanding the role of RDNs and interprofessional teams.

The course was also adapted for practicing clinicians in 2020. Among clinician respondents, most agreed the course was clinically relevant and improved their confidence in applying culinary medicine through counseling, referrals or shared medical appointments.

Best Practices Other Schools Can Adapt

The Eat to Treat model offers several lessons for medical schools, nutrition and dietetics programs, and health systems:

1. Use hands-on learning to make nutrition practical. Culinary medicine delivered in a teaching kitchen can help medical students move from nutrition concepts to practical skills and patient conversations about food, cooking, barriers and behavior change.
2. Start small and grow from there. A six-session seminar can provide a structured entry point for nutrition education without requiring a full curriculum redesign. It can be offered as an adjunct activity or elective, or individual sessions can be integrated into the existing course curriculum. The seminar can also serve as a foundation for a more formal course or specialization.
3. RDNs can be leaders and facilitators. RDNs can initiate and lead or co-lead culinary medicine programs within medical education, helping future physicians understand the role of nutrition in clinical practice and the value of RDNs as members of the interprofessional care team.
4. Build from existing Food as Medicine infrastructure. Medical education can be integrated into broader healthcare-based Food is Medicine efforts. Academic institutions can partner with health systems to leverage existing resources, such as teaching kitchens, food pantries, farms, food delivery programs, and community nutrition initiatives, connecting medical education with patient care and broader community needs.