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Biting into integrated quality improvement: medical student and staff blinded taste test for sodium reduction improving medical education and care?

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Journal of Medicine and the Person

Abstract

Over 90 % of Americans consume an excessive amount of sodium as a key salt ingredient, despite its contribution to morbidity and mortality. No known studies have analyzed the optimal salt reduction level for medical students and staff in characteristic restaurant recipes. Increased studies linking such quality improvement in medical education and care through lifestyle-based modifications with medical professionals in training may provide a promising model for competency-based medical education in the age of healthcare reform. A volunteer sample (n = 105) of medical students and staff was recruited over 3 weeks to test three-course meal components from representative restaurants prepared under a trained chef’s supervision. Subjects were not informed that sodium levels were decreased in three samples by 15, 25, and 35 % with the fourth sample being the control of 0 % reduction. The largest sub-group of subjects identified the 15 % reduced sample as the optimal saltiness sample compared to the 0, 25, and 35 % reduced samples overall among the shrimp, jambalaya, and gumbo dishes (29.23 % vs. 23.59 %, 22.56 %, 24.62 %, p = 0.567). The Kruskal–Wallis test with post hoc analysis with the Wilcoxon-Mann–Whitney test revealed that sodium-reduced samples had a significantly higher rank sum than the zero-reduced sample for favorite dish (p < 0.001). Our results suggest chefs may reduce sodium while still preserving consumer preference. Future studies are needed to investigate the impact of first-hand nutrition study participation on medical students and staff improving their own nutrition education for their future patients.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Food Care for providing the software for nutrient analysis.

Conflict of interest

None

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine, Tulane University School of Medicine, 1430 Tulane Avenue #8541, New Orleans, LA, 70112, USA

    Dominique J. Monlezun, Nathalie Matamoros, Courtney Huggins, Dakota Michaud, Leah Sarris & Timothy S. Harlan

  2. College of Culinary Arts, Johnson & Wales University, Providence, RI, USA

    Nathalie Matamoros, Courtney Huggins & Dakota Michaud

  3. Department of Global Health Systems and Development, Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, LA, USA

    Dominique J. Monlezun

Authors
  1. Dominique J. Monlezun
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  2. Nathalie Matamoros
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  3. Courtney Huggins
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  4. Dakota Michaud
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  5. Leah Sarris
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  6. Timothy S. Harlan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dominique J. Monlezun.

Additional information

D. J. Monlezun and N. Matamoros are Co-first authors.

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Monlezun, D.J., Matamoros, N., Huggins, C. et al. Biting into integrated quality improvement: medical student and staff blinded taste test for sodium reduction improving medical education and care?. J Med Pers 13, 112–117 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12682-014-0200-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12682-014-0200-7

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