Dr. Arbaugh Receives Inaugural Well-Being Award

"I first met Dr. Arbaugh when she joined our team for the PLANT study (Providers Learning About Nutrition Together). The purpose of the 6-week intervention study was to improve nutrition literacy amongst healthcare providers at Stanford not only for their own wellness but also to improve their confidence and motivation to discuss health whole food plant based nutrition with their patients. With her formal culinary medicine chef training, Carlie had previously worked with my co-PI, Dr. Maryam Makowski, in designing and leading nutrition and cooking classes for Stanford BeWell and GME Women & Medicine group. She was also a voluntary assistant instructor to Dr. Michelle Hauser in the Stanford Culinary Medicine Kitchen elective for medical students. For our study, she not only taught one of the cooking classes for each of the two cohorts, but also was actively involved in developing our weekly newsletter which had tips for healthier eating, cooking on a budget, time saving tips, recipes, climate impacts, etc. More recently, I have had the pleasure of being on the mental health access subgroup of the GME Wellness Committee with Dr. Arbaugh. She has been instrumental and proactive in finding solutions to reduce stigma of accessing mental health services and to make access to these services more readily available to trainees. I am limited by word count here, but if I wasn't I could tell you more about the many ways in which Dr. Arbaugh is a champion of Wellness at Stanford. She truly is a one-of-a-kind gem and so deserving of this award!"

"She's co-designed and co-facilitated nutrition and cooking classes for Stanford community sponsored by Stanford BeWell and Stanford residents, fellows, and faculty sponsored by Stanford GME Women and Medicine group. She's served as sous chef and assistant instructor for various projects to expand the reach of culinary medicine (practical nutrition education) beyond Stanford through filming of the Culinary Medicine Curriculum in order to expand this from SURG244 (a med student course) to a CME/CE course offered by Stanford for practicing clinicians and also to offer a free version to the public. She's mentored numerous high school students (TIDE Academy and East Palo Alto Academy), Stanford undergraduate students, Stanford graduate students (Masters in Community Health and Prevention Research in Stanford Prevention Research Center), Stanford and non-Stanford medical students (through the Stanford Teaching Kitchen and on surgical rotations/clerkships), and junior residents (on surgical services) through formal programs such as SMASH Med, the Health Career Collaborative, Navigating Medicine, SCORE, as well as informally."

"Carlie has promoted and supported wellbeing at Surgery by the following activities She serves as a volunteer in the Stanford Surgery Babushka program (2019-present), co-led (2021-2022), a resident run program to identify and deliver over the counter medications, other supplies, raise funds, and provide other support to surgical residents when they are sick, have a personal or family emergency, etc. She is a resident representative in an interdisciplinary quality improvement group project between trauma/general surgery and emergency medicine departments focused on improving peer support and access to mental health resources for those experiencing the death of a trauma patient (2022-2023) She is a resident member of the GME Well-Being Committee (2023-2024) as well as the GME Well-Being Subcommittee on Trainee Access to Mental Health (2023-2024)"

"Carlie has harnessed her love of the culinary arts and combined it in numerous innovative ways to provide a Stanford-wide impact (and beyond) to show us the power of lifestyle changes (specifically in changing the foods that we are eating and activities that we can do), and how these things can help with both disease prevention and treatment. For example, her pilot project of the Stanford Plant-Based Diet Initiative began offering healthy plant-based nutritious options to admitted Stanford patients via an interdisciplinary team of dietitians, food services leadership, clinicians, and culinary consultants. Additionally, she has put on numerous cooking webinars for Stanford trainees and faculty to encourage healthy cooking options that are plant-based and environmentally conscious. Her social media accounts masterfully mix her love for surgery and the culinary arts, with hundreds of incredible healthy recipe ideas reaching and inspiring thousands of people beyond Stanford's own community. She truly has a passion for expanding access to healthy and sustainable foods to people and communities who need them the most."

"Carlie has been a staunch advocate of physician well-being in all aspects of her life. I have had the tremendous pleasure of working with her on the PLANT Study ("Providers Learning About Nutrition Together"), which was a randomized delayed intervention nutrition education study of over 100 Stanford health care providers. She played a pivotal role in this study: she taught one of the cooking classes and was instrumental in creating the curriculum. Her dedication to healthful eating and cooking goes far beyond this, given her extensive involvement in many cooking and nutrition-related activities with Drs. Michelle Hauser and Maryam Makowski. She has served on the GME Well-Being Committee, as well as the GME Well-Being Subcommittee on Trainee Access to Mental Health (2023-2024). She served as the resident representative in an interdisciplinary quality improvement group project between trauma/general surgery and emergency medicine departments focused on improving peer support and access to mental health resources for those experiencing the death of a trauma patient (2022-2023). She has served as a volunteer in the Stanford Surgery Babushka program (2019-present), co-lead (2021-2022), which is a resident run program to identify and deliver over the counter medications, other supplies, raise funds, and provide other support to surgical residents when they are sick, have a personal or family emergency, or other extenuating circumstances. In summary, Carlie embodies and promotes wellness broadly - I could think of no one else that is more deserving of this award."