The Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine (ICOM) is excited to share it has been formally accepted into the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative (TKC), a leading network of educational, research, and community organizations with teaching kitchens aimed at improving personal and public health. ICOM is the first TKC member representing both Idaho and osteopathic medical education.
Effective July 1, 2024, ICOM has joined organizations including Google, Compass Group, and Cleveland Clinic, leading the teaching kitchen movement to improve health outcomes in the United States and around the world. Improving health with food is a passion of Dr. Sarah Davis, Associate Dean of Osteopathic Integration at ICOM.
Under Dr. Davis’ leadership, ICOM launched an innovative Culinary Medicine elective course in Fall of 2022, providing medical students an opportunity to learn about the interplay between nutrition, medicine, and patient care.
“Osteopathic medicine emphasizes a whole-person treatment approach, as well as guiding the body to its innate ability to self-regulate and self-heal,” Dr. Davis said. “Nutrition and nourishment are critical components of this process.”
ICOM’s Culinary Medicine course is comprised of a combination of didactic and hands-on culinary sessions, which take place at Boise Urban Garden School (BUGS). The course provides student physicians with a unique combination of nutrition and culinary knowledge to assist patients in achieving and maintaining optimal health.
“Culinary medicine complements the osteopathic philosophy and we are looking forward to expanding our teaching offerings to our osteopathic student doctors,” Dr. Davis said. “Our membership in the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative will help facilitate this, and we are thrilled to be among the many amazing TKC member organizations.”
The TKC is a unique collaborative of medical professionals, chefs, educators, researchers, and food system experts dedicated to improving personal and public health. The TKC’s mission is to catalyze and empower a growing network of innovators who are changing lives through food. The TKC was formally launched in 2016 in partnership with The Culinary Institute of America and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health as an invitational network of thought-leading organizations using kitchen facilities as catalysts of enhanced personal and public health across medical, corporate, school, and community settings. In 2020, the TKC became a 501 (c)(3) and is now a global network of 65 Organization and Corporate Members and over 200 Professional Members. Its members represent a diverse range of organizations, including leading academic medical centers, public youth services institutions, private employers, and public libraries. The TKC functions as a central hub and accelerator to support the reproducibility, scalability, and evaluation of emerging teaching kitchen models and educational programs.
“We’re delighted to welcome the Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine into our exclusive network of leading teaching kitchen innovators and collaborators,” said Katie Welch, TKC’s Executive Director. “ICOM is among a growing cohort of academic institutions that are educating healthcare professionals about nutrition and culinary skills as a fundamental part of patient care. We are thrilled to be part of helping the ICOM team further develop and refine their existing programs, while encouraging them to share their innovations and successes with our global network.”