MAND September Member Spotlight

Briefly tell us about your day-to-day work: I oversee all of the Nutritional Services at a critical-access hospital, so both the kitchen and the Registered Dietitian. My job includes directing the day-to-day operations of the department; managing the department budget and long-range plans to provide quality nutrition in a cost-effective manner; managing staff utilizing proper employment techniques, ongoing training, and policy adherence; and collaborating with the Registered Dietitian to complete inpatient assessment and education for patients and families.

Tell us about things you do that you find particularly interesting or motivating: Being an NDTR overseeing an RD is not something we encounter often in the Nutrition community. I want to be an advocate for DTRs/NDTRs to show we can not only play and essential role on nutrition/dietetics teams, but can also possess the skills and expertise to hold leadership positions within our organizations.

What has surprised you about your work? I NEVER wanted to work in a clinical/healthcare setting, I always felt it would be too mundane to keep me interested. My job allows me to use my nutritional knowledge and education with hospital patients along with my culinary background for managing the kitchen and has been the perfect combination of clinical and food-service nutrition.

What trends are you seeing in your work? A few unfortunate trends I’ve seen are the rise in food costs, along with the struggle of staffing turnover in food-service (this has been slowly improving at our facility!)