To work with Dr. Laurie Marbas, visit: https://www.drmarbas.com/ Why would a medical student quit medical school, go to culinary school and then back to medical school? Well that is the story of Dr. Rani Polak. Dr. Polak has an impressive resume and was a delight to talk to how he prescribes food as medicine and practices in the USA and Israel. Rani Polak, MD, Chef, MBA is founder and director of the Culinary Healthcare Education Fundamentals (CHEF) Coaching program at the Institute of Lifestyle Medicine, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, and a Research Associate, PM&R Department, Harvard Medical School. Prior to this position he completed a Research Fellowship in Lifestyle Medicine at Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School, and a residency in Family Medicine at the Hebrew University Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel. Dr. Polak had the good fortune to be the founder of the Hadassah Healthy Cooking and Lifestyle Center, and the Israeli Society of Lifestyle Medicine. His first lifestyle intervention won the Hebrew University’s Kaye Award Price for innovation, and his book, Delicious Diabetic Recipes is a gold best seller. Dr. Polak’s current focus is in nutrition education, and clinical and translational research relating to culinary medicine and medical education. His work focuses on CHEF Coaching utilizing evidence-based medicine to help individuals and professionals efficiently and cost-effectively improve nutrition. Aspects of this work includes a Patient CHEF Coaching program to improve the eating behavior of patients with cardio-metabolic risk factors, and a Clinician CHEF Coaching program that trains clinicians on how to provide effective culinary healthcare education. The Clinician CHEF Coaching program has been implemented into the Yale Preventive Medicine/Internal Medicine residency program and was recently approved by Harvard Medical School for Continuing Medical Education credits. Follow Dr. Polak on Twitter, @RaniPolakMD. Thank you for listening to the podcast and please share and rate wherever you listen!