Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine honored at Clinton Foundation Summit
The Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine at Tulane University was honored as a national innovator this week at the Clinton Foundation’s Health Matters Activation Summit in Little Rock, Arkansas. The pioneering program was given the first ever Innovation Award for Health Care Provider Training and Education by the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, the American College of Sports Medicine and the Bipartisan Policy Center.
The award recognizes leading health professional training programs that provide innovative nutrition, physical activity and obesity counseling education to their students. The Goldring Center is the first teaching kitchen to be implemented at a medical school. It teaches medical students and doctors culinary skills so they can help patients make practical dietary changes to improve their health. Staff and medical students also teach free community cooking classes for the public.
“For the vast majority of Americans, diet is at the core of their illness.”
Dr. Timothy Harlan
“For the vast majority of Americans, diet is at the core of their illness,” said Dr. Timothy Harlan, executive director of the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine at Tulane University. “By changing the dialogue between doctors and patients from a discussion about diet to one about food, we can dramatically lower morbidity and improve mortality outcomes.”
Other award winners include Healthy Homes, Healthy Futures at Children's National Health System, an obesity-centered home visitation curriculum for pediatric residents in Washington, D.C., and KNIGHTS Clinic, a free clinic run by University of Central Florida College of Medicine students.
Statistics show that fewer than 30 percent of medical schools meet the minimum number of hours of education in nutrition and exercise science recommended by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. While 94 percent of physicians agree that nutritional counseling should be a part of the visit with a patient, only 14 percent of doctors feel they have adequate training to do so.
So far, 28 medical schools, six residency programs and two nursing schools have licensed the Goldring Center’s culinary medicine curriculum. For more information, visit www.culinarymedicine.org.
