Columbia Athletics Sports Nutrition Part II
7/2/2015 11:28:00 PM | Field Hockey, Football, General, Men's Basketball, Men's Soccer, Men's Squash, Men's Swimming and Diving, Women's Golf, Women's Soccer, Women's Squash, Women's Swimming and Diving, Cross Country, Heavyweight Rowing, Softball
In a new five-part series on gocolumbialions.com, the Lion's sports dietitian, Andrew James Pierce, will provide an in-depth look at the Columbia Athletics Sports Nutrition Program.
In our series, Andrew James Pierce will discuss his collaboration with Food Services, Clinical Work, Performance and Education.
In this week's entry, Andrew talks about clinical situations.
Hello GoColumbiaLions.Com!
It has just been a couple days since I told you about my work with food services and menu planning. Today we are going to talk about clinical work.
I am a Registered Dietitian (RD), which means I am a credential clinician. To become an RD, one must complete rigorous clinical training including a yearlong internship within a medical center involving rotations throughout all areas of specialty such as cardiac, oncology, pediatrics and critical care. The RD status permits an individual to practice Medical Nutrition Therapy (MNT) to address any clinical situations or specialized conditions that might be present such as anemia, celiac disease, diabetes, disordered eating, food allergies, high cholesterol, hypertension, acute illnesses, or injuries. Even working with a healthy, athletic population, clinical situations do present themselves, whether it's a preexisting condition (for example, an athlete with Type I Diabetes) or a situation that requires medication that may include a drug-nutrient interaction. I maintain communication with the Sports Medicine staff and team physicians to say informed of player injuries and illness and identify any clinical issues that may be present.
When incoming athletes are introduced, nutrition screenings will occur as part of the Sports Medicine physicals in order to acquire basic assessment of individual players to determine nutrition risk, food allergies, potential dietary restrictions, body weight and composition status as well as presence of any clinical conditions that may require MNT. In addition, I will collaborate with Columbia Student Health Services to coordinate student-athlete care that takes place outside the athletics department.
Next week, we will take a look at nutrition and performance.
Go Lions!
Andrew James Pierce, MS, RD, CSCS
