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Hands-on Cooking in Medical Schools: Diffusion of a Prevention Education Innovation

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Abstract

Educating physicians early and often on how to have conversations with patients about diet to prevent and treat chronic disease is imperative, yet under realized. Some innovative medical schools have begun implementing hands-on cooking (HOC) programs to fill this gap, but how these programs are promoted is unknown. This study assessed the prevalence and innovation characteristics of HOC programs offered to medical students in the USA. Content analysis of webpages was conducted using a Diffusion of Innovation (e.g., relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability) framework. Themes of relative advantage included increasing students’ confidence, improvements in medical and interprofessional education, and translating into a benefit to patients through improved care. Compatibility codes showed only a quarter of webpages referred to the program as “evidence-based.” Complexity codes showed most (86%) webpages clearly described the course. About half the webpages described the program as an elective, suggesting trialability of this innovation. Many (43%) of the programs referenced use of a standardized “culinary medicine” curriculum, contributing to the observability of this innovation. Within the sample of schools, 35% provided HOC programs for their students. These findings suggest HOC programs have a strong foothold in healthcare education and provide a framework from which future studies might examine what effects innovative, successful HOC programs have on curriculum development, student experience, and, ultimately, patient outcomes.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express appreciation to the Association of Medical Colleges and Liaison Committee on Medical Education for data used to identify and present descriptive statistics for the study. The authors wish to thank Maria D. Thomson and Megan Edmonds for their feedback on the study design.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Behavior and Policy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    April Williams

  2. Individual Interdisciplinary Program, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, USA

    Anna Diffenderfer

  3. Department of Health Behavior and Policy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    Kellie Carlyle

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Williams, A., Diffenderfer, A. & Carlyle, K. Hands-on Cooking in Medical Schools: Diffusion of a Prevention Education Innovation. Med.Sci.Educ. 30, 1591–1598 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-020-01109-6

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