Return to Main Menu
|
Dietitians complement medical
profession
by Mary
Helen Yarborough
Public
Relations
As Americans grow fatter and older, dietitians’ role in preventative
and therapeutic care is becoming a critical, albeit subtle, link
between holistic and medical providence.
At MUSC, eight dietetic interns will graduate this month to enter a
vastly expanding field in which professionals trained and skilled in
the science of nutrition work with doctors, caregivers, institutions
and communities to improve health.
Registered dietitian Stephanie Tranen has guided the 10-year-old
dietitian program housed in the Digestive Disease Center at MUSC for
the past five years. She describes the program as excellent.
“It’s very competitive. …In order to be eligible to apply to this
program, an applicant must have a bachelor’s degree in food, nutrition
or dietetic sciences from an approved, accredited university,” Tranen
explained. “And they’re accepted through a national matching program
much like the medical residents.”
Out of 57 applicants, MUSC accepted eight interns who began their
internship in August. They hail from all around the country: Michigan,
Indiana, Florida, Georgia, Rhode Island, Virginia and Tennessee. And
when they finish on May 20, they will join other graduating interns
from an estimated 250 internship programs nationwide and become
eligible to take the national registered dietitian (RD) exam, which is
administered through the Commission on Dietetic Registration.
The interns will have put in more than 900 hours of clinical training.
They will have worked with MUSC physicians, community centers, the Food
Bank’s Kid’s Café, developed and managed campus nutrition
campaigns, such as “Lose to Win,” and they will have conducted research
that has been useful to hospital administrators and health care
providers.
When they graduate, a wide universe of opportunities awaits them. Large
employers of RDs include the federal government, which employs more RDs
than any other sector; state agencies, large corporations, school
districts and the health care industry.
The growth of the field has been, in essence, market-driven. Tranen
noticed a shift toward community and corporate recruitment of RDs about
15 years ago.
“Years ago, dietitians received their undergraduate education through
the old home economics programs,” said the 30-year RD veteran. “Most of
the dietitians went to work in nursing homes or hospitals.”
Of course, dietitians still work in hospitals and nursing homes, or, as
Tranen said, “anywhere where people are fed,” but the market, driven by
cost-conscious employers also have meant more opportunities for RDs.
Major corporations have learned that healthier employees drive down the
cost of insurance and reduce absenteeism, Tranen said. “As a result,
large employers are hiring dietitians, or consulting with them,” to
help establish healthier meal selections in cafeterias and counsel
employees regarding nutrition and health, , she added.
Fields also include restaurants and publishers, including Southern
Living magazine and others that focus a key part of their editorial
content on culinary arts, diet and recipes. Tranen said that CNN was
the first major broadcaster to feature an RD whose beat was health and
nutrition. Meanwhile, some dietitians go on to become researchers in
universities, hospitals and government agencies.
“When I started out, most of the jobs were in hospitals,” she recalled.
“But today, hospitals employ a smaller percentage of dietitians.
Graduates go into private practice, work in community settings, school
districts or in the corporate arena. And more are involved in the
culinary aspects of food by writing about it.”
In the past century, acute diseases were more prevalent, which called
for quick-acting medicines, such as penicillin for cures. In our modern
era, chronic diseases have become prevalent, Tranen said. So,
prescribed diets have become as important as dispensing pills,
especially when one considers that some of the chronic diseases:
diabetes, heart disease, and certain forms of cancer, all have links to
nutrition.
“Interest in health spawned the growth in this field,” Tranen said. “I
think chronic diseases have highlighted the important role that
nutrition plays in our overall wellness. It’s a big role, not only in
prevention but in health maintenance. …Good, balanced nutrition is the
key to good health.”
RDs, like a chemist, know what certain food combinations do to or for
the body.
For example, a vegetarian who eats no meat must plan this intake
of protein from other sources. “The combination of red beans and rice
contains ‘complete’ protein as does a hamburger,” Tranen said. “You
have to mix plant proteins appropriately in order to make up for what
you would get from meat. All plants have proteins, but they aren’t
‘complete.’ If you combine them correctly, you can be a very healthy
vegetarian.”
Other foods, such as pizza, can be healthy meals in themselves, but it
depends on the topping. “Pizza is healthy. You can top it with eggplant
or other vegetables, but not sausage. In this case, it’s not the
pizza that is unhealthy, but how much of it you eat.”
Community
and campus action
Many of the dietetic interns are involved with the Junior M.D. program
that was developed by graduate students. This year, interns worked with
second and third graders at Fraser Elementary School.
Tranen said that not only were the interns trying to educate children
about basic good nutrition, they were trying to inspire the children’s
interest in entering the field of health as a future career option. The
notion, even when working with a young child, is that when they
understand that there is a connection between food, activity and
health, they are more inclined to be interested in the subject and
practice better judgment.
The interns conducted three sessions with the children at Fraser, and
then they worked with the children’s parents. The parents expressed
great interest in what they could do at home to provide healthier meals
for their children, which in turn, help their children perform better
academically and behaviorally.
Kid’s
Café
The Kid’s Café is a program for at-risk children from low income
homes. The cafés are set up through the school or church where
children get a healthy meal and a safe haven between school and home.
It is a program of the Lowcountry Food Bank.
The internship has been a partner in the program for the past four
years as part of their MUSC Gives Back efforts in the community.
The current team of interns went to four locations where the Kids
Cafés were set up and talked with the children about nutrition.
They made up nutrition games and used the updated food guide pyramid as
a platform for fun learning.
The interns also were asked to develop a nutrition survey for the
children and the centers’ directors. Tranen said they used the results
of the survey to focus on future interactions with the cafés,
which next year, would focus on working with directors to increase
their knowledge of nutrition.
Research
and applicable findings
As part of their internship, the interns conduct research in a
specialized area of nutrition and produce a poster and abstract for
presentation. Some of these presentations have been accepted at
national meetings in previous years.
Examples of research and finding by the interns included studies on
nutritional supplements given in hospitals, dental caries in
African-Americans with type 2 diabetes, and diets of incarcerated youth.
Other studies looked at the maternal nutritional differences between
white and non-white lactating women; whether stickers placed in medical
charts are effective in alerting providers to certain serious
conditions; how much pediatricians know about the ketogenic diets of
epileptic patients; and whether “telenutrition” should be incorporated
to educate children in rural schools where access to an RD is
infeasible.
Interns
speak up
Leanne Kaye plans to practice in an acute care setting for a year, then
work toward her doctorate in nutrition research.
“If there is any field that complements the medical world best, it is
nutrition. Nutrition may be considered a smaller component in health
care, but it is an essential one. Dietetics has allowed me to practice
something meaningful while educating patients and Americans in general
in how to care for their bodies through nutrition,” she said.
Kay said the dietetic field has evolved.
Nutrition is no longer a field of home economics. It moved out of the
kitchen and diversified into many areas of industry- corporate and
hospital research, acute care, food product development, food service
and private counseling services to name just a few,” she said.
Kay expects the field to grow as more and more research uncovers
interactions between food and human health. “Nutrition isn’t something
we should start worrying about at age 50. It is a component that should
be part of our lives from birth,” she said.
Elissa Murphy chose the field of dietetics because of interest in the
human body and sharing her understanding with others. She would
consider a career in the foodservice and community health fields, but
hopes to work with school districts helping them develop lunch programs
and teaching nutrition in the classrooms.
“I think the most important thing about nutrition is obtaining accurate
information. I would like everyone to have the freedom to make choices
that influence their health and their family’s health with as much
information as possible.
“The field of dietetics is going to increase in importance. Interest in
health and proper nutrition is growing and I hope people will turn to
registered dietitians for sound nutrition information and counseling,”
she said.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Catalyst Online is published weekly,
updated
as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public
Relations
for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of
South
Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at
792-4107
or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to
Catalyst
Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to
catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island
Publications at 849-1778, ext. 201.
|
