Is there a doctor in the kitchen? Why this FP is taking nine months off to study at Le Cordon Bleu

The students and instructors at Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa may not know it, but should any of them get sick on campus between today and June, they won’t need to go far to find a doctor in the house—or the kitchen. They’ve already got Dr. Chris Koo. The Edmonton family physician, who also worked as program liaison for family, emergency medicine and public health at the Professional Association of Residents of Alberta, recently started his nine-month leave from medical practice to attend Le Cordon Bleu’s grand diplôme program, which provides intensive training in French cuisine and pâtisserie. “That’s both the culinary side and the pastry side,” Dr. Koo explained from his temporary apartment located just steps away from the school’s white-and-blue building. “Of course, people have asked me why I’ve chosen to go to such an intense program that prepares people to work in Michelin-starred restaurants and why would I go all the way to Ottawa. The first reason is I want to have the best credentials from a place that’s recognizable. The second reason is that I can’t take too much time away from medicine, so I might as well accomplish the maximum that I can during the time I’m taking off.” His training at Le Cordon Bleu—which charges a tuition of close to $62,000 for the nine-month program—is an undertaking that’s, literally, feeding a personal passion. Dr. Koo is an avid baker who won a spot four years ago on the CBC television series The Great Canadian Baking Show, which featured him in all but the last of the season’s eight episodes. His regular posts on Instagram—where he goes by the handle chef.koo—have, for the last three years, captured his love of baking. The photos are stunning and show off a diverse range: Karelian pastries from Finland, melktert from South Africa, tarte de queso from Spain’s Basque region and Aussie meat pie are just some examples of his handiwork. Read: Family doctors’ out-of-office passions But Dr. Koo said his decision to enrol at Le Cordon Blue was also driven by a desire to be a better physician, one who can help patients improve their relationship with food and, hopefully, make it easier for patients with diabetes and obesity to lose weight. “A few things happened that kind of pushed me in this direction: One thing is Ozempic—I cannot even tell you the number of prescription requests I’ve gotten over the last year,” he said. “The other thing is, I'd spend hours counseling and sending patients to dieticians and they’d come back and say ‘I can't do that.’ And then I'd look at all this information and recipes that they're being given and I’m thinking I don’t really want to eat that southwest corn taco salad either—I don't really blame the patients.” Hearing patients lament about the high cost of food these days—which they say makes it hard for them to prepare healthy meals—was also a deciding factor. “People are talking about inflation and saying they can’t afford to eat proper, nutritious meals because groceries are just too expensive,” said Dr. Koo. “So I’m thinking: instead of medicalizing nutrition—where it’s very prescriptive, like you should eat this and not eat that—what if we had a way to show people how to have a bit more healthy relationship with food, What if they had a better understanding of food, where it comes from and how things are prepared?” This deeper understanding of food, Dr. Koo realized, had to start with him. While he had built up a level of expertise in pastry and baking, he was less skilled when it came to making savoury foods. What he’s learned so far has been eye-opening, he said. When you look at all the recipes we’re doing at Le Cordon Bleu, they’re all very simple in that the ingredient lists are not that long,” he said. “Yesterday it was literally just pasta, egg yolks, a bit of bacon and cheese. That’s it, but when you take something that’s basic you learn to appreciate the results when you do it properly. I wouldn’t have expected something so simple to be so good, but in the end I was like, ‘this is amazing.’” Read: Overconsumption of ultra-processed foods linked to mental health disorders He had a similar experience with a selection of seasonal raw salads he made in the first month of classes. The ingredients were simple and few, and he was surprised at how much he enjoyed the final products. While it may seem hard at first to connect the dots between being a doctor and Michelin-level culinary training, Dr. Koo said he immediately saw the similarities between the two disciplines. “I’m getting flashbacks to clerkships and residency where it’s very hierarchical—the chef says something you’re like ‘Yes, chef,’” he said. “It kind of feels like I’m in the operating room.” Another similarity: Learning under the guidance of experts. Every class is a masterclass, said Dr. Koo, and the instructors expect their students to pay attention to every detail. Yet through this deep immersion in everything culinary, his training and habits as a physician still show up somehow in the kitchen. His notes on filleting fish, for example, describe how to “make an incision on the dorsal aspect of the fish in the sagittal plane to the depth of the spine.” In a recent Instagram post, Dr. Koo wrote about feeling guilty for spending the tuition and taking time away from medicine. “However, each day I realize how much intangible wisdom I gain by being here to receive these lessons.” He hopes to share some of this wisdom with his patients and fellow doctors when he goes back to his practice. “My dream would be to have a teaching kitchen where we could identify what skills people would need so they could have this healthier relationship with food and find joy in making and eating food,” said Dr. Koo As part of this dream, he would like to teach other physicians what he’s learning now at Le Cordon Bleu. “There’s research that shows that if a physician is to partake in an activity or if they do something out of habit, then they’re more empowered and more likely to recommend a similar activity to a patient,” said Dr. Koo. “I have some colleagues who are experts at what they do but feel so intimidated by the thought of cutting an onion. So I think there’s definitely room there to learn something new.” Read: Your brain on food: Brain signals differ between lean vs. obese people

Is there a doctor in the kitchen? Why this FP is taking nine months off to study at Le Cordon Bleu

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