At the Pritzker School of Medicine, nutrition is taught as a comprehensive "thread" that integrates different learning experiences to train future physicians. Students learn to understand core nutrition principles, collaborate with nutrition experts, and advise patients and the community on healthy eating.
During the first 18 months of medical school in the Phoenix Curriculum, nutrition foundational concepts are covered through a series of courses using multiple learning strategies. Select examples include the role of macro- and micronutrients in Physiology; nutrition's impact on specific diseases and human health in Clinical Pathophysiology and Therapeutics (CPP&T) lectures and case studies; psychological aspects eating and disorders in Brain and Behavior course through lectures and online interactive modules, and counseling for behavioral change, access to healthy foods, and food insecurity in Clinical Skills and Reasoning and HEAR through community immersions and interprofessional workshops led by clinicians and registered dietitians. (54 hours total)
In their first year, students get early clinical hands-on exposure to clinical nutrition through the Ambulatory Inpatient Medicine Program. Through the interprofessional immersions, all students work directly with a Registered Dietitian to see patients and apply their classroom knowledge in a patient care setting. Additionally, through Clinical Skills and Reasoning, students participate in a simulation experience where they receive feedback when counseling a standardized patient on healthy food choices and their impact on health and disease. (4 hours total)
During the required Ambulatory Clerkship, students receive formal training in a nationally acclaimed culinary medicine curriculum that was pioneered at University of Chicago and now used by over 50 schools. This hands-on experience takes place in a university kitchen with faculty who lead a nationally recognized nutrition curriculum. For those interested in a deeper dive, there is an optional culinary medicine elective in the final year of medical school. (3 hours total)
As part of Pritzker student-led community engagement, Pritzker students lead and participate in the On a Mission for Nutrition group, a student-led after-school program, that was created to address health education needs of the surrounding community. This initiative educates 6th to 8th-grade students on nutrition, empowering them to make healthy food choices through specially designed lesson plans through the “Food is Power” curriculum. Roughly 80% of the first year class participates in training through Mission Nutrition and they reach roughly 200 community members a year.