Today is Dietitian Day in Canada. It celebrates dietitians as regulated health care professionals, committed to using their specialized knowledge and skills to translate the science of nutrition into terms everyone can understand to unlock food’s potential and support healthy living for all Canadians.
Dietitians are rigorously trained and regulated health care professionals and remain the most credible source of food and nutrition information. Dietitians can help cut through the clutter of fads and gimmicks. They provide ethical, evidence-based nutrition advice to help you eat in a way that works with your culture and traditions, preferences, nutritional and personal needs such as taste, food skills, budget, and health conditions.
Happy Dietitian Day to all the dietitians at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (TBRHSC) who support hundreds of patients each year. We connected with TBRHSC dietitians to talk to them about their role.
Today’s spotlight features Olivia!
Name: Olivia Zanette
Position: Registered Dietitian
Tell us about your role on the Nutrition and Food Service team. The Regional Bariatric Care Centre (RBCC) endorses treatment based on the three pillars of obesity management that support everyday nutrition and activity: psychological intervention, pharmacological therapy, and bariatric surgery. We offer a number of treatment options for patients such as pharmacotherapy and/or meal replacement therapy and bariatric surgery in conjunction with nutrition and physical activity counselling and psychological intervention. My role as a Registered Dietitian working within the RBCC focuses on nutritional management of obesity as a chronic disease. We collaborate with patients to help enact realistic, sustainable nutrition lifestyle behaviours and skills to support healthy living in conjunction with their treatment plan.
What is the most rewarding aspect of your role? Dietitians are a main point of contact with patients within the RBCC, we work with patients over the course of years. We build and maintain relationships with a variety of diverse patients, getting to know them well. At early points of contact in a patient’s journey, we often spend time discussing health and quality of life goals, how living in a larger body influences daily life and what they would like to see themself achieve or improve through treatment. Watching patients achieve their goals and seeing the impacts it has on their health and quality of life in real time is the most rewarding part of my role.
What inspired you to work in the field?I spent time at the RBCC as a dietetic intern, it was by far the most unique and personally intriguing placement I was engaged in. I also have people within my life living with obesity, some who have accessed bariatric treatment and saw the benefits and positive impact to their lives, making this area meaningful to me.
How does working on a team of individuals from diverse backgrounds contribute to a positive impact on patient experience? Being a part of a dynamic interprofessional team is something that has helped me grow within my career as a Dietitian, it gives you such an appreciation for the wealth of knowledge coworkers from different health care backgrounds provide and shows you different perspectives. Working collaboratively within an interdisciplinary team also helps to provide patients with individualized care and support based on what their needs may be.
Stay tuned for our next spotlight this week!