UCL Medical School Leading the UK Culinary Medicine Teaching Movement

In this post, Jessica Xie (final-year UCL medical student) shares why UCL medical students have been swapping their scrubs for aprons for an eventful day of learning in a teaching kitchen.

Nutrition education in the first three (pre-clinical) years of the  UCL undergraduate medical (MBBS) curriculum includes nutritional science and public health nutrition. In every medical specialty from Paediatrics to Geriatrics, there is increasing evidence to suggest that nutrition plays a central role in determining morbidity and mortality. Thus, it is increasingly important for students to learn about nutrition in a clinical context. 

The aims of the course are to equip students with the knowledge and skills to recognise patients whose health and wellbeing may be improved through dietary modification, and to be able to provide basic dietary advice.

Set in a teaching kitchen at Westminster Kingsway College, the course provides a unique learning experience. Students engage in a variety of teaching methods, including an online module, face-to-face tutorials, case-based discussions, role play and culinary skills training. Topics that have been taught on the course so far include types of diet and their evidence base, dietary interventions to treat or as an adjunct for disease management and socioeconomic determinants of dietary patterns and access to food. The skills that students gain from Culinary Medicine teaching include food identification and preparation, and communication skills, including motivational interviewing (MI). The latter is the art of empowering an individual to change their behaviour to achieve health and wellbeing improvement. A doctor’s role in MI is to highlight to patients aspects of their lifestyle that could be improved, collaborate with patients to create achievable goals and to support patients to make, and sustain, the behaviour change(s) themselves.

Since March 2020, teaching has been delivered online via Blackboard Collaborate and new topics have been introduced to educate students about nutrition challenges exacerbated by COVID-19, for example access to food. One such topic is Nutrition Insecurity which is centred around a case study which highlights the disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on ethnic minorities, people of low socioeconomic status and those with pre-existing co-morbidities. Not only do students have the task of considering nutrition priorities from a patient’s perspective, they must also produce an appropriate management plan that addresses both the patient’s health and social needs. This task increases students’ understanding of socioeconomic determinants of health and emphasises the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to health and wellbeing. 

In June 2020, the UCL Primary Care team and CMUK organised a live cook-along webinar, led by CMUK founder (Dr Rupy Aujla) and Culinary Lead for CMUK (Chef Vince Kelly). Recipes were created using ingredients that are typically found in food bank parcels and were emailed to students in advance to encourage participation. The two hosts had a cook-off with Chef Vince producing an impressive four-course meal that won the majority of students’ votes, securing his victory! 

In future teaching sessions, students can look forward to webinars on culinary skills training, motivational interviewing role play and Q&A sessions with patients about their experiences of nutrition in healthcare. The topic Food Sustainability will also feature to teach students how to eat well whilst reducing their carbon footprint. 

Elements of nutrition education will be woven into other aspects of the MBBS curriculum. For example, students will be encouraged to incorporate nutrition advice into their General Practice reflective essays about a patient with chronic disease.

The UCL Culinary Medicine course was recently featured on BBC London news for being an innovative method of teaching medical students and doctors about clinical nutrition, and is endorsed by chefs and celebrities. 

With thanks to Dr Sara Thompson for her input in writing this blog post.