Today we're going to be speaking

some things a dietitian can and can't do.

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So hi everyone my name is Kim I am a

registered dietitian. If you are new here

to this channel and you like what you

see so far please go ahead and subscribe

hit that subscribe button. If you guys

have been watching me for any amount of time

you guys have an idea of what a

dietitian does. There are some

limitations in the field of nutrition

and dietetics. So let's first start off

with a positive note : What can a

dietitian do?

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The first thing a dietitian can do is give you personalized,

individual advice. Some people think that

the advice dietitians give is just a

cookie cutter advice, like a

one-size-fits-all and that is the

furthest away from the truth. Dietitians

work with you individually to come up

with realistic, achievable, timely,

measurable, goals that suit your personal

life. So what may work for Tom may not

necessarily work for Sally. So they

individualize their plan of care for you.

The second thing a dietitian does is

they know how to manage chronic diseases.

So say for instance, you're someone with

diabetes or high blood pressure or high

cholesterol a dietitian is able to give

you nutritional advice that will help

manage those conditions because

definitely those conditions, as well as

other conditions which I did not mention

is affected by food. Third thing a

dietitian can help you with is weight

loss. Now, obviously we live in an

obesogenic society so dietitian can

formulate an eating plan for you, they can

definitely recommend an increased amount

of physical activity depending on your

condition that can help promote weight

loss. So those are all the things that a

dietitian can do, so let's take a look at

a few things that

dietitian cannot do.

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The first thing a dietitian cannot do is to actually

diagnose a disease. Dietitians cannot

tell you "oh you have diabetes" or " you

have cancer". That is reserved to another

profession all together. So dietitians

first cannot diagnose the disease. The

second thing dietitians can't do is

actually write for you to receive a

prescription. Dietitians cannot write for

you to receive a prescription. You cannot

take that to a pharmacy and say 'well you

know my dietitian recommended that I get

this diabetes medication or this

cholesterol medication.' Dietitians cannot

do that. Again that is reserved to a

medical professional such as a

physician or a physician's assistant or

a nurse practitioner. Those professions

can do those things dietitians .Likewise

seeing that dietitians cannot write for

you to receive a prescription, they

cannot adjust medications here's a story

there was an associate of mine and she

was a dietitian she actually decided to

leave the profession and she wanted to

become a physician's assistant. There's

nothing wrong with being a physician's

assistant that's actually another video

for another time; but, the reason why she

decided to leave the field of dietetics

and become a physician's assistant is

simply because she said that there was a

lot of people coming to her that needed

their medication, specifically their

insulin to be adjusted and she couldn't

touch it being a dietitian it wasn't in

her license. Now as dietitians we do have

a license to protect. We can lose our

license just like any other profession.

So she decided you know what I'm going

to become a physician's assistant

because I want to be able to impact my

client in case I see that there

something going wrong, in case there's a

medication that needs to be adjusted. Now

what dietitians can do is to work with

the endocrinologist and work with the

medical professional, whether that's a

nurse practitioner, PA-C or physician and

make recommendations and it is at the

medical professionals discretion whether

they adhere or they choose not to adhere

to your recommendation because after all

it's only a recommendation. Some

dietitians what they have done to kind

of get a little more wiggle room, a

little more freedom in the field of

nutrition and dietetics is they've

sought order writing privileges. Now

order writing privileges do not mean you

know you can go around and you can write

medications for anything; NO!, it's only a

specific set of things. For instance,

instead of asking a physician to change

the diet if dietitian has ordering

privileges at their facility, because of

course there's state laws and there's

bylaws and there's a whole bunch of...

wouldn't say red tape more like yellow

tape that you need to to properly cross

in order to have order writing

privileges but, a dietitian can go ahead

and change the diet. Another thing that a

dietitian can do with order writing

privileges is recommend treatments for

something a little more invasive and

these things are tube feedings as well

as TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition) so let's first talk about tube

feedings. Tube feedings is a means of

artificial nutrition where a tube is

either inserted through your nose,

through your mouth, somewhere in your

stomach or in your intestine and you're

started on feedings. Dietitians can write

for tube feedings to be started. In my

hospital I do not have order writing

privileges I have dependent order

writing privileges which means I seek

permission from medical professional

before I start anything . So with the TPN as well dietitians can start TPN's

depending of course as I said earlier on

the discretion of their facility and

their state and how comfortable they are

was starting TPNs. So TPNs on the

other hand it's a little more invasive

but what if TPN is it's also another

form of artificial nutrition. So

basically you're infusing fluids which

are loaded with vitamins and amino acids

and sometimes lipids, if lipids are ordered

which are fats, and calories and dextrose

which is sugar to make sure that the

patient is adequately fed. Now TPNs, total

parenteral nutrition is used if the gut

doesn't work. Tube feedings are always the

first line of preferable feedings if the

individual for some reason cannot eat by

mouth. So I just wanted to share with you

just a few things what a dietitian can

and cannot do so this is not an

exhaustive list there's a lot more

things that dietitians do do and there's

a lot more things that a dietitian

cannot do. Well thank you guys for

watching as always remember to like and

subscribe and leave a comment in the

comment section below and for the

dietitians out there watching this video

go ahead and add on to this list, let's

start some discussions. Have a good day...

Bye.

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