HIV Care Rounds

Presenter: Cheryl Collier, Rani Wangsawidjaya, Alena Spears, Gerry Kasten

Title: HIV Nutrition: Practice across Continuum of Care

Location: Conference Room 7, Providence Level, St. Paul’s Hospital

Cheryl Collier, is the dietitian at the Oak Tree Clinic at BC Women’s Hospital. Cheryl completed her undergraduate degree in 2001 and a Master’s of Science in Human Biology and Nutritional Science in 2004, both at the University of Guelph in Ontario. A dietetic internship opportunity at St Paul’s Hospital brought Cheryl to Vancouver. Over eight years ago, Cheryl started her career in HIV nutrition when she worked as the dietitian with the HIV Program at St Paul’s Hospital.  Cheryl has a strong interest in research and worked as a research dietitian for three years with a multi-centre trial on diet and cholesterol management based out of St Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.  Since 2010, Cheryl has participated as the dietitian faculty member for IHHS 402 – an undergraduate interdisciplinary UBC course on HIV Prevention and Care instructed by an interdisciplinary teaching team.

Rani Wangsawidjaya, is the Nutrition Services Coordinator at Dr. Peter Centre. She started her career in the HIV field after completing the UBC HIV Interdisciplinary course. Once graduated, she worked as a dietitian in a township in South Africa at an HIV hospice and primary care clinic. Upon her return to Canada, Rani continued working in the community and public health sector. She is also the Head Dietitian at Camp Kakhamela, a camp for children and youth with Diabetes.

Alena Spears, graduated from the Regina Qu’Appelle dietary internship in 2011 and is currently working as the dietitian in the Immunodeficiency Clinic and Crosstown Clinic at Providence Health. She has been working in the area of HIV care since January 2012, and previously worked on the inpatient unit 10 C for 3 years. She has been involved in two research projects in the Immunodeficiency clinic looking at rates of overweight and obesity and food insecurity in the clinic’s HIV population and is planning on doing a third project shortly. In her spare time, Alena loves to cook and experiment with new foods and recipes. She will pass her insights and recipes along to anyone that will listen.

Gerry Kasten loves food! He was born to a farming family and still helps his brother bring in the harvest each year. He has an Honours Diploma in Commercial Cooking and both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Human Nutrition. He has worked in Public Health for the past twenty-five years. He has led the boards of directors of both Dietitians of Canada and the BC Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation and chaired the expert advisory committee for Health Canada’s “Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants.” He is also a Sessional Instructor in UBC’s Dietetics program. Gerry wants to live in a world where people celebrate food, sharing it with those they love, taking its pleasure without restraint because its flavour saturates their most sensuous appetites.
This event is approved for 1.0 Mainpro-M1 credit.

 

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