plainjanie77 wrote:Hi Jeff, I am in love with the Dr M's teaching. I lost lots of weight and preach whenever possible about Dr M's teachings . I myself am a RN and graduated with my MSN and really believe that I have a calling in this field of prevention and education . Can you please give me direction on who I can speak to with regards to how I can make a career out of this..? Thank u
Sure.
If you go the forum's FAQ here and scroll down, you will see a heading called, Nutrition Education: Finding The Best Path
viewtopic.php?f=22&t=37233I would encourage you to read through the links and all prior discussions because the more insight you gain now, the better for you later.
I will give you some key points though.
- The fact that you are already a health care professional with a graduate degree puts you at a slight advantage.
- There is no WFPB/Vegan movement that exists for health care professionals. In other words, the actual f/t jobs that exist in this field, as a true health care professional are very few. Most anyone you can name in this field who has been in it a long time, except for a very few, either did/does this on the side, did it as a form of service, made very little money at all, or got lucky. I got lucky a few times over. Very lucky. Or they ended up selling diet programs, supplements, or other junk. Over the years, we have had Facebook groups, list serves, forums etc to try and help professionals make a career out of this and it is hard. There is a vegan movement that can be somewhat more financially supportive but that is not the same thing.
- If you are an entrepreneur, that may help, as you may end up with some combination of what you currently do and a few other things all mixed together (teach classes, do counseling, etc). Right now, there are way more "experts" (credentialed, degreed and licensed or not) then there are patients who want to do this.
- You have to really think about what you love to do, what you see yourself doing and how all these will fit together in the next 5 years. In other words, if it was 5 years from now and all your dreams came true, how would you be manifesting this in the world.
- If you can be clear on such a picture, then find a 4-5 people who are actually doing that and speak to them about the road they took to get there and all the above issues. There are many ways this can be pursued from food service, to nutrition, dietetics, counseling, psychology, public health, fitness, medicine, research, public policy, agriculture, etc.
- If you are willing to maintain your day job and enjoy it, then keep doing that while you try to find your niche in this. Perhaps one day it will be fruitful financially but for most of us, the main benefit is helping people and the main job allows us to do this part.
- You also have to ask yourself if you want to spend much of the rest of your professional career in an ongoing debate with colleagues and clients about how to eat (carbs vs fats and potatoes vs nuts and Atkins vs Paleo vs Vegan etc etc). Being a health care professional doesn't help as there are health care professionals on all sides. If not, don't, because the paradigm is not going to shift in our lifetime.
I am not trying to be a buzz-kill, just being a realist and honest. Better to have an idea of what lies ahead now, then finding out the hard way.
Let me know if you have any other questions
In Health
Jeff
by plainjanie77 » Mon Nov 27, 2017 10:52 pm 
