Doctors For Nutrition 2023: Year In Review
At the end of another fulfilling year, we evaluate our achievements and look forward to maximising our impact in the exciting year ahead.
In 2023, resilience prevailed amidst national and international challenges, sparking shifts in priorities. Growing environmental concerns, and economic strains fueled a push towards plant-based choices.
Weather-related events such as wide-spread flooding, bush fires and a peak in average temperatures highlighted the need for sustainability. The ongoing cost-of-living crisis prompted many of us to seek out ‘savvy sustenance’: getting back to basics with nourishing and budget-friendly meals. We continued to spend more time at home than ever before, in Australia roughly 40% of us now work remotely, growing interest in healthy home cooking.

Doctors For Nutrition set the tone for 2023 within our own community by hosting Australasia’s only whole food plant-based nutrition conference. We gathered over 250 like-minded people in Melbourne to showcase both the long-established and the latest research on the leading lifestyle factor to influence health outcomes: our diet. The momentum of this cornerstone event continued throughout the year with many conversations and connections growing.
During the rest of year we fast-tracked hundreds of GPs, medical students and health professionals, teaching them how to improve patient outcomes through plant-based nutrition, via our Prescribing Nutrition course.
We continued to inform many thousands of people across the healthcare sector and wider community through educational webinars, resources, mainstream and social media. We also spoke face-to-face with health professionals and medical students.
Finally we wrapped up 2023 with the Doctors Health Challenge — helping health professionals to better understand and assist their patients in implementing lifestyle changes by making those changes themselves!
See details of the year’s achievements in the snapshots below, and read on to discover what’s in store for 2024.

Over 250 delegates, the majority of whom were healthcare professionals, gathered in-person or virtually. Those joining face-to-face gathered in Australia’s cultural capital, Melbourne. The conference ran over two full days and we were joined by 24 local and international experts. Delegates learnt about the role of a whole food plant-based approach to eating in the prevention, management and reversal of numerous chronic disease conditions.
A key focus of the event was providing practical tools and techniques to support delegates in transitioning to a whole food plant-based diet themselves or helping their patients to do so. Interactive sessions facilitated real-time responses to the most popular questions from the crowd.
Outside of the main academic program there were many other opportunities in which to partake: chances to get moving including a mindfulness session, a run and a guided walk.
Explore a brief recap on the academic sessions throughout the two days and learn how you can access the full recordings.
Growing our reach

In 2023 we:
- Built our e-list to 7,770 subscribers; gaining an average of 77 new subscribers every month.
- Had over 35,000 active users on our website; with our recipe collection and our NIHC23 conference pages proving highly popular.
- Provided free resources to our community. There were 2,676 downloads from our website.
- Added 9 new plant-friendly clinicians to our website.
- Hit 20,000 social follows, an average of 304 new subscribers every month.
- Began our new bi-monthly e-newsletter — a newsletter keeping our audience abreast of news, views and insights across the plant-based community.
- Continued providing our expert-opinion across a range of magazines, newspapers, radio, podcasts and websites.
Prescribing Nutrition
In 2023 we:
- Up-skilled 379 doctors and medical students via a blended learning course.
- Helped 100% of our participants feel more confident talking with patients about plant-based diets.
Feedback shows that the course fills an important knowledge gap; rather than turning to medication, they now have another tool in their bag…whole food plant-based nutrition.
Learn more about our free online course for GPs, medical students & health professionals.

Doctors Health Challenge
In 2023 we launched the Doctors Health Challenge. We set out to show GP’s first hand the benefits of whole food plant-based nutrition. Ultimately, we wanted to increase the number of GP’s championing whole food plant-based nutrition in patient care and also teach them how to make a dietary shift, providing the necessary tools to assist their own patients.
The month long challenge included bite-sized lessons on topics such as simple meals and convenience foods for busy professionals through to medication modification that may be required. The challenge also offered an online live cooking demo, online Q&A sessions and a final challenge celebration.


Food Vitals Webinars

In 2023 we hosted 5 Food Vitals Webinars. The topics covered were:
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- The role of nutrition in women’s hormonal health and polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS)
- Chronic kidney disease: the role of nutrition
- The role of nutrition in acne
- Breast cancer: the role of nutrition
- Remission of rheumatoid arthritis with nutrition

Face-to-face events
Besides hosting our own event we were out and about in the community. In 2023 we reached more than 2,700 health professionals and medical students by collaborating, presenting and exhibiting at 4 health conferences and events:
- Australian Medical Students Association (AMSA) National Convention on the Gold Coast
- Australian Society of Lifestyle Medicine (ASLM) Conference in Melbourne
- WONCA Sydney
- General Practice Conference and Exhibition (GPCE) Melbourne
More than 2,600 Doctors For Nutrition resources were distributed to health professionals and medical students, including ‘Plant-based nutrition: A guide for health professionals’, patient handouts and meal plans.
Our team had 820 face-to-face interactions with health professionals and medical students, many of whom were excited to hear about a charity promoting the important role of plant-based nutrition in healthcare.
Fundraising
Doctors For Nutrition is a fully independent charity that relies solely on donations. We are able to deliver all that we do thanks to the generosity of our donors.
A generous donor offered us the opportunity to raise funds by matching up to $50,000 of donations received up until 31 December 2023. We were so grateful to our supporters to helped us raise $47,116. This equated to an impressive $94,231 in matched donations!
In recognition of the importance of future healthcare professionals, Doctors For Nutrition were fortunate to be able to offer five scholarship places to our Nutrition in Healthcare Conference, also made possible by the generosity of our donors.

The year ahead
Next year we will run the Doctors Health Challenge again, continue with our much-enjoyed Food Vitals Webinars and up-skill more health professionals via our Prescribing Nutrition course.
For the broader community, we also look forward to delivering a series of online cooking demonstrations and are in the midst of developing a new course to help transition to whole food plant-based nutrition for life.
Alongside these projects, we’ll be continuing to strengthen and grow alliances with other organisations and seek impactful opportunities to gain traction for our messages about whole food plant-based nutrition for health — human health and planetary health.
From all of us at Doctors For Nutrition, thank you for accompanying us on our mission. We’re excited about what the future holds, and we’re looking forward to your support.
If you’d like to get involved in supporting our work you can find out more now.