Dr. Nisha Patel was born in Los Angeles, CA but raised in Austin, TX. She graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2008 with her BS in Neuroscience. She took a few years off to work as a clinical trials recruiter before she completed her post-bacc at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in 2011. She graduated from Texas A&M College of Medicine in 2015 with her MD and completed internal medicine residency at the University of California San Diego in 2018. She moved to San Francisco after training and is currently practicing as a hospitalist there.

Dr. Patel realized that she needed to make lifestyle changes given her strong family history of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Unfortunately, physicians are not trained in practical nutrition education and even though she generally knew what a healthy eating pattern consisted of, she didn't know where to start and felt overwhelmed. Thankfully through her own reading and researching, she discovered the field of Culinary Medicine and is currently pursuing a formal certification process through Health Meets Food. She has been able to use the practical nutrition knowledge that she has learned to make her own lifestyle changes and feels significantly more comfortable talking about healthier eating patterns with her family, friends and patients. She also hopes to continue educating her fellow physician colleagues.

Dr. Patel has a special interest in food insecurity and how it relates to chronic diseases. She feels strongly that healthy eating should be accessible to all but knows that first we must understand that there are many socioeconomic challenges that one may face that can prevent them from doing so. She hopes to continue finding ways to make healthy eating affordable.

To learn more, you can follow her on IG @DrPlantel