As part of my career exploration process, I interviewed Tara Simpson, a Registered Dietitian, Board Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics, Licensed Dietitian and Nutritionist, and founder of and Director of Client Care at Nutritional Health Systems in Wayne, PA. She is a well-regarded expert in the areas of eating disorders, sports nutrition and nutritional counseling.
In just a few short months, Tara helped me win my 15-year battle with EDNOS (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified). Not only is she a knowledgeable dietitian, she also is a skilled counselor, and her nutrition knowledge and counseling abilities make her an asset to the field. She knows exactly what to say, and more importantly, what not to say to a person recovering from an eating disorder. Had Tara been a hard-core “eat this, not that” type of dietitian, I don’t think I would have recovered so successfully. Instead, her approach is “everything in moderation,” and I believe this approach is KEY to overcoming an eating disorder.
I was so grateful when Tara accepted my request to interview her about the R.D. occupation because I think she is a perfect role model of all the attributes that an R.D. should possess. I was so energized after our interview and more excited than ever about this potential career path. I still have to mull over a lot of ideas in my head, but this path seems like it might be a very nice fit for me. I learned a great deal of information that will assist me should I decide to pursue a degree in dietetics and a career as an R.D. Though I have not posted our entire interview, I posted those questions and answers that I felt would be most helpful to my readers. If you’re interested in pursuing a career as an R.D., or if you’re just interested to learn more about the field, read on. Perhaps Tara has answered some of your own questions.
Following are some excerpts from our interview:
Tammy: Before entering this profession, how can I know if this is a field I’ll even enjoy? Are there certain qualities that you think an R.D. should have or certain things that you think an R.D. should enjoy?
Tara: Well, the complicated part is that there are so many areas you can go into. You could do food service management where you manage the kitchen or the cafeteria in a hospital. Or . . .you can have an office job and do no direct patient care, as a clinical manager, and oversee other dietitians in a hospital. You could do one-on-one patient care in a hospital and see a lot of patients briefly, or you could see patients long-term and counsel one-on-one in an outpatient setting or private practice. There are so many areas that no matter what personality you have or what you like you can probably find a niche. You could write articles for a magazine and not ever see a client. You could write a book. There are so many things you could do that are different. You don’t have to work with people if you don’t want to. So, there aren’t specific things you have to like and do because you can always branch out.
Being an R.D. is a general career. If you decide to specialize in a specific area of nutrition, you can always change your mind and go back to another setting, so it’s nice. I think the obvious difference between working with people in a hospital, where you see cardiac patients, renal patients, etc…, and working one-on-one in private practice or in an eating disorder unit is that you are able to develop a relationship with the patients when you get to work with them for longer term. I want to have relationships with people and in the hospital it’s really hard to do that because your patients are there for such a brief time period. You see them once or maybe twice and you never see them again. You don’t know if they listened to you. You don’t know if they cared. You really can’t develop a relationship unless there’s a rare case where a person is there for a few months. Working with eating disorders in an inpatient setting or at a place like Renfrew — they’re there for multiple weeks or multiple months at a time — you can develop a relationship. The ability to develop relationships is why I like the work I do.
So, to answer your question, I think that the qualities you should have or the things that you should enjoy to be an R.D. depend on what area of nutrition you work in.
Tammy: So are there any qualities that a prospective R.D. should have that would make you say, “If you don’t have this particular quality, you shouldn’t go into this field?” I know science is a big part of it, but some people are afraid to go into nutrition because of the scientific aspect of it.
Tara: I’ve known people who feel that they can’t become an R.D because they have to take anatomy and physiology and organic chemistry. I’m guessing that in any field there are going to be classes that you’re not especially looking forward to. Therefore, I can’t really think of one particular quality that you would need to enter the field.
There are some other requirements of being an R.D. After you pass the R.D. exam, you need 75 credits every 5 years (that’s the current requirement) of continuing education. There are many different ways to complete these credits.
You can be as involved or not involved as you want to be in the field. . . you can join the American Dietetic Association and within the Association, you can join as many subgroups as you would like. I belong to three of these groups . . . one is called SCAN — it’s more sports nutrition and wellness — and I also belong to an entrepreneur one. The third one that I belong to is for behavioral health, which includes eating disorders. There are tons of them . . . there’s one for cancer, there’s one for diabetes, etc. When you join, you get a newsletter specific to each area with research, updates and book updates. You could run to be the President or Chairperson of a subgroup. I read the newsletters that are sent to me in order to keep updated. There are also conferences that each group hosts.
After becoming an R.D., there are also specialty certifications that you can obtain. For example, if you’re interested in diabetes, you can become a C.D.E., a Certified Diabetes Educator. They’re constantly coming out with new ones. About 5 or 6 years ago, they came out with the Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics that I have. You can specialize, and usually if you take one of those exams, it gives you your full 75 continuing education credits. The exam is good for 5 years and then you have to retake the test. They give you an outline of topics or categories and a list of books and resources. You just study on your own and take the exam.
Tammy: If I attend a bachelor’s level dietetics program, do my internship, and become an R.D., do you think there are going to be good job opportunities in this field in a few years?
Tara: I do. I heard a rumor that they are going to require Registered Dietitians to have master’s degrees. From my experience, when applying for a job, I haven’t seen it matter whether or not you have a master’s degree. That would be the only glitch [if they require a master's degree]. Right now, I think that there are a lot of job opportunities.
Specializing is a little harder. Right after my internship, I wanted to go into eating disorders. Everyone told me that I shouldn’t and that I should do 5 years or so of clinical work, in a hospital, and get experience. I really didn’t want to do that, so I started looking for a job in the area that I was interested in. I had a list of all the eating disorder facilities in the country . . . there were probably about 50 that I had on my list, that I found online. I called all of them. Out of all of them, three had job openings. One wouldn’t even talk to me because I had no eating disorders experience and I interviewed with the other two . . . and I got a job.
To specialize, you usually need to have experience. But, that’s the case in any field. If you don’t have experience, then how do you get a job? And if you don’t have a job, how do you get experience? It’s a Catch-22. So, sometimes you might need to work in an area that isn’t your first choice, just to get experience.
Tammy: Do you think it’s necessary or advantageous to get a master’s degree?
Tara: Sometimes if people have a bachelor’s in something else they can go straight into a master’s program and then do the joint master’s internship. So, if you could find something like that where it would be the same amount of time, that would be nice. It’s so questionable because there are these rumors, but these rumors have been going on for a while. Right now, if you walked in and tried to get a job (with only your R.D and no master’s degree), I don’t think it would make a difference. I don’t know . . . if there are three applicants and two have a master’s and you don’t . . . are they going to disregard you? I don’t know. They didn’t when I was looking for a job.
Tammy: Are there certain places where there are more job openings for Registered Dietitians than others?
Tara: I think the hospitals are the easiest places to find jobs. There is a high turnover because people are moving on or are specializing and leaving.
Tammy: Is it difficult to start your own practice? What’s involved in that?
Tara: The hardest part is establishing referrals . . . and it’s all about connections and who you know. To get your R.D. and then open a practice “cold turkey” would be very, very difficult. In my situation, it worked out because I worked in an inpatient setting for many years, first. That’s where I met a lot of the therapists and doctors in the area who treated eating disorders. Initially, I was working at the hospital full-time and then I was doing this [one-on-one counseling in a private practice] two nights a week, after work. And then I slowly cut my hours at the hospital and built my hours here. Once I had a client base, their therapists started refering other people to me and their doctors started refering other people to me . . . and those clients would refer other people to me . . . and now it’s this whole network. And now, I’m doing some sports nutrition, so I’ve had the opportunity to get to know a lot of coaches in the area. The point is: referrals are how you get the patients.
Advertising, I found, is very difficult. Some of the general advertising methods that you think about, like putting an ad in a magazine, haven’t worked for me. People want to say, “I know her,” or “I know someone who’s been to her.”
Tammy: Is this a good career for a mom and/or for someone who wants to work part-time?
Tara: Yes. I think even if you are in a hospital, there are a lot of part-time positions. For example, at some hospitals, they are looking for someone on weekends. And, obviously, if you’re in private practice, you can make your own hours. It’s on your own time. If your schedule is booked and you want to come in on a Saturday morning to see a few more clients, you can.
Tammy: Are there similar careers or other pathways to getting involved with nutrition or eating disorders? Are there other ways to get involved that I should consider?
Tara: If you want to be working in the nutrition field, obviously you do need to get an R.D., especially if you want to know that you can always get a job. If you walk into any hospital with an R.D., you’re qualified. There are a lot of people out there who call themselves nutritionists who don’t have an R.D.
Tammy: And I think people know to look for an R.D. I mean, I did. I’ve heard of this new thing, too: wellness coaches. That sounds cool, but can’t anybody do that?
Tara: It may be faddy, too. It may go in and out. Especially in this economy, I don’t know how much business they’re getting.
Tammy: Do you think, in this economy, nutrition is staying strong? Do you think it’s going anywhere?
Tara: I haven’t seen or heard that it has. I know that hospitals still REQUIRE it. I haven’t had a problem here. It’s like a doctor’s office — have they had problems? I don’t think so. I think it’s similar to that. I haven’t seen any difference.
Tammy: I’m basically deciding between a counseling path and a nutrition path. Do you have any thoughts on that for someone who is in my position and at my age (27)?
Tara: With the therapist route, it’s probably similar to nutrition in that there are different areas you can work in, and it’s probably the same pathway if you ultimately wanted to have a private practice: making connections, getting referrals, etc. There are two things I would consider. One is the schooling and what kind of degree you’d have to get to do what you want to do in counseling. And the other thing is: I think you should try to decide if you’re interested in counseling or food. Try to separate out eating disorders. If you weren’t involved in eating disorders, do you picture yourself treating an obese client, or treating a client with diabetes, or designing meal plans? Does that interest you? Or is it more talking to people and counseling them? There is a big difference. With eating disorders, it gets intertwined, so that’s why you may be confused about how to make your decision. So, I think you should definitely sift that out. If you didn’t treat eating disorders and you had someone come in with celiac disease, would you be interested in doing the research and giving them recommendations for celiac disease?
Tammy: Do you think this is a stressful job and what would you say is the most stressful part of it?
Tara: I can’t say that I feel that I have a high-stress job here. There are challenges and difficulties, but I’ve learned how to set boundaries with my patients and how to not take things personally.
—– End of Interview —–
Thank you, Tara, for all of the great information!
Tara asked me some of the best questions I’ve ever been asked — questions that are really helping me to sort out what it truly is that I want to do. I hope that some of her kernels of wisdom are helpful to you in your own career explorations . . . or that you simply gained a better understanding about what it’s like to be an R.D.
