Experiences of Multidisciplinary Health Professionals From a Culinary Medicine Cultural Immersion: Qualitative Analysis

Purpose

Increasing Culinary Health Opportunities for Professionals (iCHOP) aimed to educate future and current health professionals on nutrition as medicine.

Methods

Two cohorts each participated in a 16-week course followed by a cultural immersion in Tuscany, Italy. The course took place online through West Virginia University. After the course, participants traveled to Tuscany, Italy for a 2-week cultural immersion. The online course covered culinary medicine, the Mediterranean Diet, and cultural comparisons. The cultural immersion consisted of hands-on activities including culinary lessons, food production and organic farm tours, and tastings of Mediterranean foods. Data was collected through personal journaling in order to capture participants’ thoughts and experiences during the immersion. Journal entries were analyzed using NVIVO Software Version 12 in order to generate themes.

Results

Cohort 1 (n = 15) consisted of currently practicing health professionals and Cohort 2 (n = 14) consisted of aspiring health professionals. 20 themes and 5 subthemes were generated from 9 journal topics. Themes showed that participants had an increase and knowledge and self-efficacy and applied new information to personal and professional settings.

Conclusions

Cultural immersions can be an effective way to educate health professionals on nutrition as medicine and using journaling as a data collection method can effectively capture participants’ experiences.