Only one in four medical students gets the recommended 25 hours of nutrition training while a medical student, says Texas Public Radio. The Baylor College of Medicine is trying to change that by putting future pediatricians into a teaching kitchen so they can pass along tips on healthful diets to their future patients.
“Prevention is the best medicine,” said Dr. E.B. Ghazali, one of the first physicians to take part in the Culinary Health Education for Families, nicknamed CHEF, in the kitchen at Children’s Hospital of San Antonio. “If we can somehow help our families by getting them a way to get healthier food at an affordable price, hopefully we can see them in the kitchen and then we don’t have to see them in the hospital,” Ghazali told Texas Public Radio.
Baylor is one of 17 medical campuses trying out the new curriculum for future pediatricians, said Dr. Julie La Barba, head of the CHEF program. Two-thirds of chronic disease is avoidable through diet and lifestyle. Pediatricians see children 20 times before they are age 5, La Barba told the public broadcaster, and “they may be the only person who’s talking to a family about their diet and lifestyle.”