Metabolic Clinic

Days like today reaffirm that there is a great need out there for Dietitians. In case you don't know what a dietitian is, I recently ran across a definition in my Community Nutrition book, written by my professor Dr. Gail Frank:

Registered Dietitian (RD): A nutrition expert in the healthcare profession. RDs provide reliable therapeutic and wellness counseling and help individuals achieve a total food intake that tastes good and ensures good health. RDs have met the requirements for credentialing by the American Dietetic Association. This involves at least a bachelors degree, a supervised training program in an accredited/approved institution, a national registration examination, and continuing postgraduate study.

What is more difficult to define is the role of a dietitian. Here's what I put on my exam (about RDs that specialize in community nutrition, only one career choice in dietetics) : There are many avenues which a community nutrition professional (CNP) may use to exercise influence in their community. Depending on the medium a CNP's "community" or "public" may be a clinic, a town, a state, or even the world. CNP's may serve in local clinics and hospitals educating patients and healthcare professionals. They may educate school teachers and foodservice workers who in turn will influence students in an entire town. CNP's may become advocates in the political forum and influence politicians and in that way affect the lives of people all over the country. CNP's may create literature or conduct research to be published which may be read all over the world. I feel that each level of involvement in equally as important, from educating individuals about disease prevention to educatings healthcare professionals worldwide about research discoveries.

I've thought about focusing on community nutrition. That might mean working for WIC. I also consider some jobs RD's have in school foodservice to be community nutrition roles, and I have a huge interest in that. We recently had a guest speaker, Julie Olien from LBUSD come and talk about her role as a child nutrition specialist, a title created by LBUSD recently. I love it, because that's really what I want to become, an expert in that area. She works under a grant developing a program called "Network for a Healthy California". Maybe some of ya'll have heard of Harvest of the Month, which I really love. They use some of these materials at Eleanor's school.

I say all that, but then days like today kind of send me off into thoughts of other possibilities. I think prevention is keys for many nutrition issues today. But there are children out there who'll never get to go to school because they suffer from rare metabolic disorders such as PKU or OTD. Honestly, these aren't the toughest cases to face. There was another kid there today, whose diagnosis I cannot remember because of it's rarity and crazy long name, that just had a bone marrow transplant. His parents lost another child to the same disorder and there is some research that the BMT may treat it. But can you imagine, losing 2 children? Being a dietitian in the metabolic clinic means giving people a hope, a chance at survival. These are people with real needs, who really listen and take advice. You should see the twinkle in their eye when they hear that their child has gained weight, or been approved for insurance to cover special foods, or looks well nourished. They are so desperate for guidance. But oh, the heart break.....

Either way I'm more excited about nutrition this semester than I have been since I started at CSULB in 2003.....I've got to get to bed.