Advocacy

If you are a MAND member, then Public Policy and Advocacy is central to your career, regardless of your career setting, tenure or nutrition philosophy.   Recent policy issues have covered the entire spectrum, such as

  • Participate in the update of Long Term Care Facility Regulations and the Assisted Care Regulations to provide the best nutritional care for residents
  • codifying the scope of practice of unlicensed professionals
  • continuing the State’s licensure provisions for RDNs and CNSs
  • extending federal coverage of Child Nutrition programs
  • allowing RDNs to write medical nutrition orders
  • authorizing CMS to grant billing status to RDNs

We may believe our work as nutrition professionals begins and ends with the public. However,  we must also understand that under what conditions, and if, how, when, where, and by whom those services are provided, is determined by federal, state, and local governments, as well as private corporations.   Optimizing the provision of such services is the goal of the Academy’s public policy mission.  Thus, if nutrition is your profession, then public policy is your business, even if the decision-making seems remote or complex.  As someone famous is reputed to have said, “Those who choose not to participate in democracy are doomed to be controlled by those who do.” 

MAND’s public policy positions are formed by the MAND Public Policy Panel, which includes:

Public Policy Coordinator (PPC) Glenda L. Lindsey, DR.PH, MS, RD, LDN
President Angela Green, RDN, LDN
President-Elect Helene Fletcher, RD, LDN
Delegate Jessica Kiel, RD, LDN, NASM-CPT, CCRP
Business & Reimbursement Chair Evangelina DiSpirito, RDN, LDN
Communications Chair Ashley Lewis. RDN
Public Relations Chair Jana Wolff, RD, LDN
State Policy Representative Carolyn Wescott, RD, LDN
State Regulatory Specialist Arnetta Fletcher, PhD, RDN, LDN
Consumer Protection Coordinator (CPC) Amy Goldsmith RD, LDN

 

MAND at the 2019 Nutrition and Dietetics Advocacy Summit

Members of our Maryland Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics joined hundreds of other RDNs from around the nation for the Academy’s annual 2-day event, the Nutrition and Dietetics Advocacy Summit held in Washington, D.C. July 11-12, 2019. The 2019 summit goal was to promote the critical importance of nutrition in policy and to advocate for congressional support of two bills: The Treat and Reduce Obesity Act and the expansion of Diabetes Self-Management Training (DSMT). The business meeting location was the Marriott Marquis in Washington D.C.

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