In health professions, the kitchen is as crucial as the clinic. At least according to Dr. Preston Maring, a gynecologist and obstetrician with three decades as a surgeon. Food is at the center of health and illness, he says, and so doctors must make all aspects of it, "growing, buying, cooking, eating," a mainstay of their medical educations, personal lives, as well as their practice. A man who walks his talk, Maring is a regular at the weekly farmer's market, which he started with his son in 2003, just outside the front door at the Kaiser Permanente medical center where he works. He's even bringing local food onto hospital trays and cafeterias!
