Main content

The Medical Field: Why student doctors are getting out on farms

Sheila Dillon joins a group of medical students on a farm visit, to discuss whether an education in food production could help them offer better nutritional support to patients

The Food Programme first met Iain Broadley and Ally Jaffee in 2017, when they were studying medicine in Bristol.

The pair saw a disconnect between the rise of diet-related diseases, and the training they received around nutrition - with some students getting as little as eight hours of compulsory nutrition education during their entire time at medical school. So Ally and Iain founded Nutritank, an organisation championing better nutritional education for healthcare professionals, which earned them the Pat Llewellyn New Talent trophy at the 2019 大象传媒 Food and Farming Awards.

Today Nutritank's active in more than 20 medical school societies across the UK, and has been part of a working group charged with finalising a new nutritional curriculum for medical schools, due out this autumn.

Now, they're piloting a scheme taking student and junior doctors out on farm visits - in a bid to better educate future healthcare professionals about food production and nutrition, so that they in turn can better advise their patients.

So could it work? Sheila joins them on a farm visit to the Great Tew Estate in Oxfordshire, to find out.

She also speaks to Kate Henderson from the estate's farm team, Liz Lake and Caroline Drummond from Linking Environment and Farming, and Dr Glenys Jones: a registered public health nutritionist and deputy chief executive of the Association for Nutrition.

Presented by Sheila Dillon; produced in Bristol by Lucy Taylor.

Available now

29 minutes

Last on

Mon 21 Jun 2021 15:30

Broadcasts

  • Sun 20 Jun 2021 12:32
  • Mon 21 Jun 2021 15:30

Download this programme

Subscribe to this programme or download individual episodes.

Can comfort foods really make you feel better?

Yes they can, says Sheila Dillon.

Podcast