What RDs Do: Vanessa Yurchesyn, RD, CFE, MBA (candidate)

VANESSA YURCHESYN

ACCOUNT MANAGER

COMPLETE PURCHASING SERVICES INC
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Vanessa was excited about the opportunity to share her non-traditional role, especially since she loves the work that she does. Her passion also fits very well with the purpose of this series. She is 1 of 3 dietitians on Complete Purchasing Services's national account management team with the President Brian Emmerton and one of the VPs, Cristina Dee-Ong.

Why did you become a RD?

First and foremost, I love food! I job shadowed dietitians in a few practice areas in high school, and the diversity of the profession was something that I was attracted to – I knew that I would always be inspired to try something new!

What area of dietetics do you work in?

Business & Industry

How would you explain what you do?

I am an Account Manager with Complete Purchasing Services (a Group Purchasing Organization and a division of Aramark). I am responsible for servicing and developing the Complete Purchasing Services primary market (mainly senior living facilities) in Nova Scotia. We provide best value pricing on products and services utilizing the combined purchasing power of Aramark and our client locations.

What are your ‘typical’ daily/weekly tasks?

I manage our Nova Scotia account base, which is mainly senior living facilities but also includes schools, child care centres, social enterprises and camps. I work closely with our distributor, manufacturer and supplier partners in the industry to assist our clients in maximizing the overall benefits derived from a CPS membership. In an ever-evolving business environment, I must keep up-to-date with client and industry issues and requirements. We offer a number of core operational tools and resources from menu programs to ordering platforms and educational events, so I promote these value-added services to our members. I am also responsible for growing our business, which is fun and motivates me every day!

What has been your career path?

When I completed my internship in 2011, I took a 1 year contract with Shannex as Manager of Support Services (Foodservices, Housekeeping and Laundry) at a long term care facility in Halifax, NS. I then worked part time as a clinical dietitian at two long term care facilities in Saint John, NB while starting a consulting business ‘All Foods Fit Nutrition Consulting’ where I did workplace wellness programs, individual consultations and media work. In May of 2014, I started with Loblaw Companies Ltd as a retail dietitian and worked for 2.5 years providing nutrition services to five Atlantic Superstore locations in New Brunswick. This brings me to my current role as Account Manager with Complete Purchasing Services. January 2018 will mark five years of being a Registered Dietitian!

What advanced education or special training do you have?

I am currently completing a Master of Business Administration (MBA) with a specialty track in Innovation Leadership at the University of Fredericton Sandermoen School of Business. I will graduate in the Spring of 2019.

In an ideal world, what does the industry look like 5 years from now?

Consumers don’t worry about the food that they eat, food is increasingly treated as medicine by everyone including food companies, and dietitians are known to all as food lovers not food police.

What are you passionate about in dietetics?

I am passionate about celebrating the diversity within the dietetics profession. I love sharing my non-traditional career path with students and interns, as well as seasoned dietitians. I enjoy experimenting with and learning about how a dietitian’s skill set can put them in positions that were never imagined.

What is your favourite meal?

Of course, the answer depends on the season! In the Spring/Summer, I love fish tacos with grilled fish, a mango/cucumber salsa and red cabbage slaw. In the Fall/Winter, I enjoy a hearty beef stew over creamy mashed potatoes. Crème brulee or anything with chocolate are my favorites desserts.

What tip(s) would you give to our readers?

Life is too short – we should be able to enjoy what we eat and drink. With that said, practicing mindfulness and being active every day are just as important!

More about Vanessa:

Email: yurchesyn-vanessa@aramark.ca
Instagram: @allfoodsfitrd
Facebook: Vanessa Yurchesyn
Complete Purchasing Services: www.ecps.ca

Thanks Vanessa! Find out more about What RDs Do.

If you're a dietitian that would like to be featured, email me for the details!

What RDs Do: Sabrina Bovee, RD

SABRINA BOVEE
CARE HOME MANAGER 
& SENIOR ADVOCATE

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I know Sabrina from my undergrad years, although we haven't stayed in touch; earlier this year she appeared in the post Where are they now - a special feature on my dietetics classmates. I've been aware of her passion for aging with dignity and elegance and am always happy to share non-traditional roles. I'm sure you'll see her dedication shine through her responses. 

Why did you become a RD?

I grew up with European immigrant parents who highly valued nutritious foods. Although I had sometimes wished my parents would send me with the wonder bread and cheese whiz and fruit roll-ups that my class-mates had, instead I was sent with rye bread and European deli meat sandwiches with fresh fruit. I can now appreciate how it instilled a love for good tasting healthy food.

What area of dietetics do you work in?

I am currently working as a manager of a 15 resident (and 1 respite bed) long-term care (LTC) home. So, I am in a non-traditional dietitian role. However, I am able to lead our 8 department team in excellent dining enhancement initiatives and potentially help flag resident nutrition concerns sooner than the monthly or every other month visit by the consulting clinical dietitian. I accepted this role with the desire to work towards improved life for seniors, and from a nutrition perspective, I want to prevent malnutrition and improve the food culture for our residents and communities. I found that with the regular nutrition assessments there were, at times, barriers to follow-through, or that when residents presented with what seemed like a lack of appetite solely based on a bad dining experience I could not change that with my recommendations. I thought that if the root cause was a poor life environment (unfriendly staff, lack-luster dining room etc.) no care-plan that I would create would really get down to the root cause of the problem. I was also not the one in charge of the “b” word- budget.

I began this new role a year ago, and since that time, one exciting initiative that we have started is a hydroponic indoor garden. Saskatchewan has a short gardening season so we have been fortunate to receive a donation of a 5 foot tall indoor garden unit that we will utilize to grow greens, herbs, strawberries and any other produce or plants that our residents feel like growing. We are able to allow our residents to give back (personal growth) via the nurturing and caring of these plants, as well as we are fostering partnerships with the school students who will be able to bring their science students over to learn about pollination (remember- there are no bees to do this for us in the care-home). Additionally, we will have a better variety of options for our menu, potentially the ability to sell produce to our staff and community and to raise money for the resident council. Lastly, we will be potentially reducing our food costs so that we can help to balance our over-all budgets and create a long-term sustainable health care system.

How would you explain what you do? What are your ‘typical’ daily/weekly tasks?

I am a part-time manager and I manage 8 departments: laundry, housekeeping, food and nutrition staff (cooks), nurses, care-aids, recreation and maintenance. With approximately 50 staff in my portfolio, human resources- recruiting and retaining staff along with labor relation concerns and ministry mandated projects including safe transfers, hand hygiene, etc. take up the bulk of my time (and more!)

However, I have carved out time to work on building an engaged team and a vision for our community health center. I believe that only when staff feel valued, cared-for will they be able to work towards greater improvements for the residents. We have had organizational and learning events and I have taken a baseline survey, a few months into my position, to measure improvements in morale, support from myself team work. We are seeing significant improvements and measurements such as an 8/10 for happiness by most respondents, show our readiness to move into other important areas of change. Beyond the staff, and the most important area is creating a person-centered care-home. Since I began, we have been dedicated to regular resident council meetings. Residents and their families meet to discuss and plan on all areas related the care-home. Menu and food choices are often at the fore-front. Recently, we have changed the “cooks choice” on the menu to “resident choice” and we have gathered a variety of menu ideas to further our personalized menu to meet our dynamic resident needs.

What has been your career path?

I started my career in community dietetics- with a focus on diabetes management and weight management. Then I moved into long-term care and worked providing education to care-home staff, as well as individualized nutrition care-plans for residents.

On the side via The Grazing Goose, I have given some mindful eating workshops on my farm (we raise pasture-raised poultry, heritage pigs, and grass-fed beef; a whole other area of my life that I could speak to). Our future plan for the farm is on-farm stays so while only locals can purchase our products anyone traveling down the number one highway in the next couple years will be able to have the opportunity to vacation on our farm!

In the past 3 years I’ve also have the privilege of giving some public presentations to dietitians in Ontario (Gerontology network) and in British Columbia for dining enhancement work their multidisciplinary team is doing.

What advanced education or special training do you have?

I don’t have any specialized management training. My main strategy for success and survival (some days such as a lay off or termination notice days are awful) has been to pick good mentors. I have one dedicated mentor that I connect with, even for 30 minutes every few months. I also surround myself with positive, individuals that support me and believe in the work that I am doing. Many of these individuals are not health care professionals. However, they have a vested interested (as do we all!) in changing the culture of aging.

In an ideal world, what does the industry look like 5 years from now?

In an ideal world, in 5 years from now, we will have solved all the underlying causes that lead to poor dining experiences for seniors. For example, staff will be happy, healthy, empathetic and engaged in their work so that they can truly be present and facilitate an amazingly satisfying dining experience for our well-deserved seniors. Basically, we will have created an environment where by which even a dietitian that walks into the home says “wow! I want to eat here!”.

What misinformation about RDs would you like to clear up?

I am currently battling and challenging the misinformation in terms of the capacity of what a dietitian can do in management. Traditionally it has been Registered Nurses managing long-term care, and although there are now managers with a background as paramedics and social workers, a dietitian managing other health care professionals, at least in our province is extremely rare a thus new territory.

Anything else you’d like to add that you feel would be valuable:

I developed a mealtime educational tool for educating staff. It is free and available on YouTube or google “mealtime management video”. It’s a foundational educational tool for all staff working with seniors. The content is relevant to LTC, community and event acute-care.

I hope that you will join me in improving the future of aging for all of us!

More about Sabrina:

Website: sabrinabovee.com
Facebook: SabrinaBoveeSeniors
Email: sabrina.bovee@gmail.com 

Website: The Grazing Goose
Instagram: @thegrazinggoose
Facebook: The Grazing Goose

Thanks Sabrina! Find out more about What RDs Do.

If you're a dietitian that would like to be featured, email me for the details!

What RDs Do: Melissa Baker, MHSc, RD

MELISSA BAKER

UBC MANAGER OF NUTRITION & WELLBEING

BLOGGER

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I know Melissa through Dietitians of Canada and she's a dietitian in the series that I have met several times in real life! If you've been following the series, you may have noticed the variety of tasks dietitians do and that we often don't have 'typical' days or traditional paths to our current roles. I love that her current role has wellbeing right in the title, especially since she's passionate about preventative nutrition. I would say that my professional goals are in-line with Melissa's, so I'm glad we're on the same team!

Why did you become a RD?

I didn’t discover the profession until the third year of my microbiology degree at UBC Okanagan when I was looking at the list of professional programs available at UBC. I was feeling discouraged by the job opportunities available after graduating with a major in microbiology and wanted to explore other opportunities. Dietetics jumped out at me right away. I loved food, cooking and inspiring others to eat well. It seemed like the perfect match. So I switched majors to Food, Nutrition and Health and moved to UBC Vancouver to pursue it! 

What area of dietetics do you work in?

I do a bit of everything! My full-time job is with Student Housing and Hospitality Services at the University of British Columbia. I work as the Manager of Nutrition and Wellbeing. This job is varied in itself, but I also manage the Practice Blog for Dietitians of Canada, write for the Huffington Post and my own blog upbeet.ca, and volunteer for the Dietitians of Canada Board of Directors. 

How would you explain what you do?

With all my roles, my goal is to work towards bettering the health and wellbeing of Canadians by focusing on prevention and making healthy eating easier, while also promoting the dietetics profession. 

What are your ‘typical’ daily/weekly tasks?

I don’t have many “typical” days. But, some of the wide variety of things I do include providing one-on-one counselling with students living in residence at UBC, as well as education and training for students and Student Housing and Hospitality Services staff on a variety of nutrition related topics. I also co-chair the UBC Wellbeing Food and Nutrition Working Group, which some other awesome RDs at UBC sit on. I work with our culinary team to make sure we are offering healthy, balanced menu options, including many entrees with plant-based proteins. I do allergy training with staff so they know how to ensure our students with allergies get a safe meal. And I am working on a big labelling project to ensure we are providing accurate and accessible nutrition, allergen, and ingredient information to our customers. Outside of my day job, I spend some evenings and weekends writing and editing articles, testing recipes for my blog, and catching up on Board work. 

What has been your career path? 

I started out working in clinical dietetics for a health authority in BC, mostly working with patients with diabetes and doing outpatient counselling. After I decided working in this area wasn’t for me (I wanted to work in a more preventative focused setting), I went back to school to do my master’s degree at Ryerson University. Following that, I worked for the BC Dairy Association as a nutrition educator before starting in my current role at UBC. I also spent some time doing contract work on a variety of projects and working as a retail dietitian during my first couple years of practice. 

What advanced education or special training do you have?

I did a Master of Health Science in Nutrition Communication at Ryerson University. 

In an ideal world, what does the industry look like 5 years from now?

My vision for the profession for five years from now aligns well with Dietitians of Canada’s key priority: “Policy makers and the public acknowledge that nutrition is a primary contributor to improving health and that the dietitian profession’s unique body of knowledge and skills makes an integral contribution to health improvement.” We are definitely working towards that but we have a ways to go. 

I would also love to see universities expanding their programs to allow more dietitians to enter the workforce. This is vital if we want to keep up with unregulated nutrition professionals. 

What is your favourite meal?

Fish tacos shared with family and friends! (Or a traditional turkey dinner with lots of stuffing and Brussel sprouts!) 

More about Melissa:

Instagram: @upbeetrd

Twitter: @upbeetRD

Facebook: Up Beet

LinkedIn: Melissa Baker, MHSc, RD

Thanks Melissa! Find out more about What RDsDo.

If you're a dietitian that would like to be featured, email me for the details!