Facts with Tact: Strategies for Uncomfortable Conversations in Sports Nutrition

This product is free for SCAN members.

This webinar was presented live on August 26, 2020.

The world of performance nutrition is fast paced and brings together experts from all disciplines. Have you ever had a conversation with a professional from a different discipline that didn't go as well as planned? Has another discipline given nutrition information or expanded their scope into your area and you are unsure how to successfully navigate that terrain? Has the nutrition information other disciplines profess been inaccurate, outside their scope, or competing to your evidence-based recommendations? If so, this session is for you. Experts from SCAN and PINES have come together to share their global experiences on handling these conversations. This webinar will include strategies for defining levels of communication, scope of practice creep, team roles, appropriate documentation and checking your own response to a possibly hostile situation.

CPEU: 1.0

Learning Objectives

1. Develop strategies to improve communication among disciplines
2. Review key roles of the sports medicine team and concerns with scope creep
3. Discuss strategies to defuse hostile situations

Speakers

Lindzi S. Torres
MPH, MS, RDN, CSSD, LD, ACSM EP-C, FAND
Major, USAF

Lindzi currently serves on active duty at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, as the Operations Officer for the Special Warfare Human Performance Squadron, USAF. In addition, she serves as the military Chair for the DoD Performance Nutrition Working Group. She established the first AF active duty Performance Dietitian position and Performance Nutrition program for the Special Warfare (Air Force Special Operations) training enterprise overseeing a team of 9 nutrition professionals, $1.1M annual operation budget in support of 560 operators and support staff, 1.1K trainees, over 16 programs across 10 states. Lindzi has experience in various areas of dietetics, to include health promotion, public health nutrition, clinical dietetics, disordered eating, and sports/performance nutrition. She managed the largest overseas USAF health and wellness center nutrition program and deployed for 6 months to Afghanistan in support of Operation: ENDURING FREEDOM as the sole dietitian for all US military and coalition forces in theatre.

Lindzi has been involved in various research projects, most notably in a grass-roots research project focusing on decreasing protein-calorie/energy malnutrition through plant-based nutrition in rural Tanzania and a study investigating cardiovascular biometrics and their relationship to vitamin D status with an NFL football team. She earned a BA in physical education with a minor in psychology and coaching at the College of Idaho, a MS in nutrition at the University of the Incarnate Word, a MPH in health promotion and behavioral sciences from the University of Texas Health Science Center, and completed her dietetic internship with the United States Military Dietetic Internship Consortium at San Antonio Military Medical Center.

Joanne Mirtschin
B Health Sc (Nut and Diet), APD, AccSD, GAICD
Senior Foodservice Dietitian
Australian Institute of Sport

Joanne Mirtschin is an Accredited Sports Dietitian currently working as the Senior Foodservice Dietitian at the Australian Institute of Sport and in this role manages and advises nutrition in the food provision at the Australian and Italian bases of the Australian Institute of Sport (Canberra, Australia and Gavarate, Italy). She has worked with the Australian Rowing Team and the Australian Olympic Committee in Summer and Winter Olympic campaigns in food planning and food preparation for athletes. She has been a member of the PINES group who reviewed and provided feedback and advice on the food provision and menus to local organizing committees and contract caterers at several Olympic games (2012 and 2020). Outside nutrition, she assists in the management of staff and businesses in her family enterprise (10 small businesses and agricultural enterprises) and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.