“The Long and Winding Road” – that famous Beatles song describes my career path in promoting wellness as an RDN.

 

The journey began in 1986 when I graduated from the University of Texas at Austin.   After a months-long family camping trip across the eastern US and Canada, I took my first job in my new profession at an inner city hospital near Chicago, where I grew up. 

 

Drawn by the beauty of Maine we saw on our camping trip, we moved less than a year later, and I trained to provide MNT in the Diabetes Self-Management Program at a small rural hospital.  Soon I became a CDE and joined the U.S. Indian Health Service to coordinate the Diabetes Program for three Native American tribes in far northern Maine.

 

After relocating to the Midcoast region, I had the privilege to work at the renowned Diabetes Program at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor alongside Cindy Hale, the first RD to be employed by the Maine CDC, an inspiring professional who devoted her entire career to helping people with diabetes.  Before she passed away after years of battling the complications of the disease, she did so much to advance her dream of preventing diabetes.

 

In 2013, opportunity came knocking when I was named Coordinator of the National Diabetes Program (NDPP) in my region of Maine.  Our program at Pen Bay’s Diabetes and Nutrition Care Center includes five RDNs and one nurse. 

 

Our NDPP has had 135 participants complete the program (our last class lost a combined 276 pounds), and we achieved full national recognition.  We have established a partnership with our local YMCA to expand our reach into the community and – last but not least –  hired an additional RDN and expand to offer the Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program.

 

I have been invited to make a presentations on our successful DPP at the 9th  and 10th Annual World Congress on Prevention of Diabetes and Its Complications in Atlanta.  It was such a thrill to meet with leading health care professionals and researchers from around the world at that global forum to share ideas and insights.  The road is long, winding, and very rewarding.