Dietitians
About Dietitians. The ESPEN Dietitians' Group was formed in 1996 and is the successor to PEEDS (Parenteral and Enteral Dietitians Society). It was the general agreement of the PEEDS Executive Committee that European dietitians could benefit from the umbrellaship of ESPEN, the well-known, established nutrition society, which in recent years has significantly increased its interest and focus of nutrition education. This has lead PEEDS to become the ESPEN Dietitians' Group.
The Dietitians' Group aims to become a well-recognised identity in nutrition and dietetics within Europe. In order to do so, we are proposing some tentative aims for the group. We will welcome any comments you may have.
Aims of the Group
The ESPEN Dietitians' Group will
-
Actively participate in nutrition education for dietitians and health care professionals through participation in the ESPEN Congress
-
Support the activities of ESPEN Educational Committee
-
Participate in the development of consensus papers on nutrition and nutrition support
-
Encourage networking and mentoring opportunities among dietitians in Europe
-
Encourage participation of dietitians in multi-disciplinary nutrition care teams
-
Encourage the setting and achieving of high standards of practice by dietitians working in nutritional support
-
Stimulate dietitians to undertake research and offer mentoring opportunities for them
-
Develop a database of members of the ESPEN Dietitians' Group
The ESPEN Dietitians' Group currently has one representative in the Educational Committee of ESPEN. For the past years Pat Howard, Luiza Kent-Smith, Cora Jonkers and Emese Antal have represented dietitians in this committee. At present, Dr. Liana Pouia is the dietitans’ representative in the ECPC. Generally the Organizing Committee for each Congress also has a dietitian representative.
ESPEN congresses offer continuing education for Dietitians. For the dietetics session, abstracts submitted by dietitians are selected to be presented. The dietetics session is not only attended by dietitians, but has also attracted the attention of other professionals within ESPEN. In addition, the educational and scientific sessions during the ESPEN congress offer many possibilities to increase knowledge. Finally the Life Long Learning (LLL) programme in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism is an extremely effective educational programme for dietitians, offering training on-line and at live courses. Annually, approximately 20 live courses are offered during the ESPEN Congress. On-line course can be taken from home. Please take a look at the LLL website for more information http://www.lllnutrition.com.
There is also a brief questionnaire. We would be very grateful if you could complete and return it. This will help us to identify the interests of members and to establish a membership list.
The group only accepts ESPEN members. If you're not a member yet, please join us! If you are a member of a national PEN society that has signed a blockmembership agreement with ESPEN, you are entitled to a special rate of € 80 per year that gives you the same benefits as individual members. Your national PEN society will bill you for your national + ESPEN membership and will then pay ESPEN.
Contact Dietitians
The ESPEN Dietitians' Group can only reflect your interests and answer your needs if you tell us what these are! We look forward to hearing from you and to receiving your suggestions.
Dietitian member of the ECPC