Back in the early 1980s, I attended a two and a half day training offered by the Dairy Council of California on Successful Patient Counseling. At the time, I was the outpatient dietitian at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. To this day, this is the single best continuing education event I have ever attended. It completely transformed how I did patient counseling. I changed my approach from being directive to client centered. I learned how to incorporate counseling strategies that had a greater likelihood to create behavior change. I learned a reality-based approach in which the client creates their own goals while taking into account their favorite foods, convenience, family traditions, etc. This cutting edge approach was one of the factors that enticed me to later come to work for the Dairy Council of California.
Well, for a variety of reasons, the old course was abandoned. However, the need for dietitians to learn effective counseling skills has not gone away. In 2009 we pulled together an advisory group with expertise in undergraduate dietetic education as well as dietetic internships. With the assistance of the advisory group, we created a new online module,
Nutrition Education & Counseling Skills -- Training Module, that includes the latest research on motivational interviewing and individualized counseling strategies while modeling the the nutrition care process. The entire module is free and accessible online. This training module is meant to supplement existing resources in the dietetic curriculum and is not an all inclusive curriculum by itself.
If you are a dietetic educator, please take this opportunity to review this high quality training module. Completion of the module is excellent preparation for taking the RD exam and for future clinical practice. If you are a dietitian in clinical practice, this module provides an excellent refresher on counseling techniques.
Feedback on the module would be greatly appreciated. Our intent is to expand the module in the future with additional resources.
Maureen Bligh, MA, RD
Project Manager
Maureen Bligh, Registered Dietitian
About me:
Maureen Bligh is a registered dietitian and project manager for the Dairy Council of California. She manages online communication and social media efforts, an internal Nutrition Trends Team and develops online continuing education courses for health professionals.
Maureen's career in dietetics spans over 30 years and began in clinical dietetics and out-patient education at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, California. She provided nutrition education to people of all ages, especially diabetes education for children, pregnant women and adults.
She has passion for providing reality-based, nutrition education to help people enjoy a wide variety of nutrient-rich foods to lead a healthy life. She was delighted to recently discover that her commitment to family meals helped shape healthy attitudes and habits for her two teenage sons.
Follow Maureen on Twitter: @MaureenB_RD