Where Food, Family, and Medicine Intersect
May 9, 2026
“La buona salute è la vera ricchezza per la vita,” meaning “good health is the true richness in life,” is a phrase Luke Laconi carries from his Italian roots and says captures what drew him to medicine. 
Growing up, Luke’s close-knit family built health into everyday life. As the son of two college athletes, staying active and playing multiple sports were part of his everyday upbringing. Healthy cooking was encouraged, meals were prepared together and shared around the table, and it was there that Luke developed his love for cooking. Watching his grandparents and great-grandparents live vibrant lives well into their 90s through simple, consistent lifestyle choices taught him early on the power of prevention.
Inspired by the example of his mother and grandmother, education also carried a deep sense of purpose in Luke’s life.
“To them, education was not only a means of personal advancement, but also a form of empowerment. Their example shaped how I came to see learning and knowledge as ways to serve and uplift others,” Luke said.
His Catholic faith also taught him to see medicine as an opportunity to serve others with dignity, compassion, and hope.
Those values followed him to Loyola University Chicago, where he studied cellular and molecular neuroscience, and later to medical school at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine.
“I was drawn to medicine because it brings together my love for learning and science with the deeper purpose of using that knowledge to help people recover, improve their health, and pursue the lives they hope to live,” he said. 
That perspective continued to deepen throughout medical school as Luke sought opportunities to combine his interests in prevention-focused care and lifestyle medicine. Some of his most formative experiences included co-creating MSU’s first lifestyle medicine elective, volunteering in teaching kitchens, and presenting related research at a national conference.
During his third and fourth years in Traverse City, Luke continued this work by helping establish a hospital-based teaching kitchen curriculum at the Groundwork Center. Through the program, patients and healthcare professionals learned practical approaches to nutrition, cooking skills, public health, and chronic disease management. These experiences also led Luke to receive a scholarship to attend the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine’s International Conference on Nutrition in Medicine in Washington, D.C. 
Luke found that the Traverse City campus offered a smaller, more hands-on learning environment where he could work closely with physicians, gain early independence in patient care, and train in both rural and community hospital settings. He was especially grateful for the mentorship and support he received from a community of physicians, residents, and students who shared his interests in prevention-focused care. For Luke, training in northern Michigan also reinforced the importance of bringing practical health education to rural and urban communities, where patients may face greater barriers to accessing preventive care and chronic disease resources.
His experiences led him to pursue internal medicine at the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School, a field he describes as the ideal combination of problem-solving, continuity, and whole-person care.
Ultimately, Luke hopes to become an internist and cardiologist who is also board-certified in lifestyle medicine.
For him, the goal has never simply been treating illness. It has always been about helping people build healthier, fuller lives, long before disease begins.
By Nadija Kadunic
