(P08-001-25) How to Establish a Culinary Medicine Elective Course at a Judaic Medical School A Qualitative Study

Objectives: Creating a culinary medicine program at a Judaic institution while minimizing operational costs and maximizing student engagement.

Methods: Creating a culinary medicine program at a Judaic institution requires that all food is prepared to kosher standards. This requires the institution to maintain a kitchen that adheres to strict standards dictated by the institution's rabbi, a significant investment in time and money from the institution and would limit the number of students who could be enrolled in the course.

An online clinical nutrition with culinary medicine elective was established in the Spring of 2023 at Touro University Nevada (TUN), a medical institution founded on Judaic principles. The course allows medical students to follow lectures at their own pace to accommodate their already rigorous school curriculum. The course consists of six, two-week sessions where students work in pairs to prepare meals and complete assignments including reflections with required photos of produced dishes. In this way, students could learn within their kitchen without the need to establish a costly kosher kitchen that could only accommodate a fixed number of students which can cost upwards of several thousand dollars per session.

Results: Instead of being limited to 16 students, as most medical institutions offer within a professional kitchen, the online course can accommodate up to 32 students. A grant was used to fund a pilot program and provide students with basic cooking tools. TUN also contributes $25 for each group per session totaling a cost to the university of $2100 on average for the course.

Conclusions: The establishment of an online culinary medicine program at a Judaic institution is not only financially feasible but allows medical students to learn the basics of preventative medicine. It also allows them to reflect on the preparation of food in the context of non-communicative disease management.

Funding Sources: IAMSE ScholarRx Student Grant