[00:00:00] If you're looking to grow your business as a registered dietitian, you've come to the right place. If you're not sure what to do or what steps to take next so that you can create flexibility and freedom in your life, then you're going to learn a lot from tuning into our podcast here at Dietitian Boss.
[00:00:17] I'm Libby Rothschild, the founder of Dietitian Boss, a fellow [00:00:20] registered dietitian and business owner. And in our podcast, I share the highs and the lows, and I talk all about how to grow your business. Get it started. And I interview our clients to date. We've had over 200 interviews from clients who share their journey on our podcast.
[00:00:36] Dietitian boss.
[00:00:37] Libby: Welcome. I'm here today with Beryl [00:00:40] Krinsky is a successful entrepreneur who is a registered dietitian nutritionist with a master's of science in food science and a master's of business administration and food marketing. Beryl's been on the podcast before and I'm so happy to have her back. She has over 10 years of corporate experience with nutrition and food companies prior to launching her first business, Be Komplete.[00:01:00]
[00:01:00] Libby: Be Komplete is a corporate wellness firm that offers a variety of onsite and virtual services for corporations to enable individuals and corporations to better manage health conditions and to achieve optimal wellness. Beryl is proud to employ an experienced team of wellness professionals, including registered dietitian nutritionists, yogas and Pilates instructors, chair [00:01:20] massage therapists, personal trainers, registered nurses, and licensed acupuncturists.
[00:01:24] Libby: who represent the Be Komplete brand and bring their services to life. With her passion for educational wellness longevity, Beryl launched a second business, the Komplete Business Dietetic Internship, KBDI. This program trains our future registered dietitian nutritionists and how to help [00:01:40] the greatest number of consumers worldwide.
[00:01:42] Libby: Beryl volunteers for ASEND as a Dietetic Educational Program Reviewer and sits on the Board of Advisors for Rowan University of Dietetic Programs and the California State University LA Dietetics Program. Beryl's passionate about living a healthy and balanced lifestyle and loves exercising and traveling, cooking, animals, meditation, spending time outdoors, and [00:02:00] always learning.
[00:02:01] Libby: I'm so happy to have Beryl here today and I'm proud to serve on her board for KBDI, her Business Dietetic Internship. Beryl, welcome to today's episode.
[00:02:10] Libby: Hello and welcome. I'm so happy to be here today with Beryl. She came back for another episode, and we're gonna talk today about a really important discussion that comes up more often than I would [00:02:20] think, and that has to do with what do you need to be successful to precept, dietetic interns?
[00:02:26] Libby: What's the benefit how does it work and why should we do it? As preceptor. So this is from the perspective of more so for preceptors. But if you want to hire, if you want to find a preceptor, if you're an in current, this will be [00:02:40] helpful as well. So welcome to today's episode. And how are you doing today, bro?
[00:02:45] Beryl: Thanks, Libby. I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having me. I think this is a great conversation topic, and I think we can really help a lot of both like students and preceptors with this conversation. Yeah. Awesome.
[00:02:58] Libby: So with that [00:03:00] why is it? First of all, is there a shortage of preceptors? Is there a need for for us to think about this?
[00:03:06] Libby: Why is this important?
[00:03:07] Beryl: Yes, we always need preceptors and kind of depending on the year, there could be a shortage or we could be in a pretty good spot. Let's back up and I'll explain just a little bit about the role of a [00:03:20] preceptor and why it's so important and so valuable to become a registered dietitian.
[00:03:26] Beryl: Someone must do practical in person and some virtual, but a lot of it's in person supervised practice hours. That is the dietetic intern working side by side with the [00:03:40] registered dietitian. Learning hands on clinical food service management community. We also have business other settings. I have found in working with hundreds, if not thousands of students.
[00:03:54] Beryl: The only way to feel really confident right off the bat is having as much [00:04:00] hands on experience with patients as possible. The role that preceptors play is helping to kind of like unofficially manage, coach, mentor, guide the intern during the rotation. We expect the preceptor to do their day to day work.
[00:04:19] Beryl: We're [00:04:20] not expecting them to, go like do different work than they normally do or do a lot of additional work. We want them to do their normal work and have the intern work alongside them as much as possible. We provide different learning objectives, suggested activities, competencies for our interns.
[00:04:39] Beryl: Our [00:04:40] interns come and show the preceptor on day one, you know, kind of like what's expected. But what we expect is that the intern is doing the work that the preceptor is already doing anyway. Some of the benefits of being a preceptor is that you're going to have someone that can help you out Whether it's patient [00:05:00] notes, creating educational materials for patients, doing follow ups with clients and patients depending on what the preceptor is working on, creating marketing materials, helping out with social media, all different things.
[00:05:15] Beryl: So those are some of the benefits. Expectations for a preceptor is [00:05:20] that the preceptor is going to be a mentor to the intern. We really want the preceptor not to assume the intern is going to know everything or even much of anything when they start out. You know, they're learning, they're a student, and we have to have certain forms and things like that the preceptor will have to do.
[00:05:37] Beryl: I'll pause there. Hopefully I answered at least [00:05:40] Part of that question.
[00:05:41] Libby: Absolutely. So that was great. And let me know if you agree after working with so many students and overseeing this as a director, noticed a lot of pushback and resistance from dietitians who are asked to be preceptors.
[00:05:55] Libby: Why do you think this is? And what's the benefit of precepting, even if a dietitian [00:06:00] is early in their career or busy, right? Because it feels almost like I get this vibe that it feels like a cumbersome for dietitians to precept. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:06:09] Beryl: Yeah, I hear that. And I understand where that's coming from.
[00:06:12] Beryl: I can't speak to other internships, but if like let's say they're coming from a dietetic internship that doesn't have a really detailed curriculum [00:06:20] for the interns and the intern shows up at like the private practice pretty much empty handed and says, okay, what are we doing?
[00:06:27] Beryl: Then I think that can be really stressful and overwhelming for the preceptor or go showing up at the hospital or the assisted living. What are we doing? Our internship is not like that. We have a really detailed curriculum for [00:06:40] every rotation and suggested learning plan and activities and competencies that are interns are working on with the preceptor.
[00:06:48] Beryl: If the preceptor has really busy few days or even a few weeks, Our interns are still going to know, Okay, I need to learn this. I need to ask this question, et cetera, so that our preceptors [00:07:00] don't need to reinvent the wheel. So that's going to definitely save time for our preceptors and also reduce stress and reduce any extra work.
[00:07:10] Beryl: Some of the stress also comes from probably the paperwork and my heart goes out to everyone because I know how you feel because I have to do it too. It's [00:07:20] part of our profession. We have to do paperwork. We have tried to streamline as much as we can. We can't get away from it. We've made some of the paperwork online to try to make it a little bit easier, save the environment a little bit.
[00:07:36] Beryl: We still have our curriculums printed out for our students. [00:07:40] If someone doesn't want to do things online, we understand that too. So I think that's part of the overwhelm. I think if an intern comes in like a deer in the headlights and they haven't done their due diligence to read up and learn about the rotation that they're going to, and like, let's say it's clinical, they [00:08:00] haven't reviewed their medical nutrition therapy and or they're going to private practice and they don't know like, What's the demographic or who are the clients?
[00:08:09] Beryl: And I understand, too, why the preceptor would feel a little stressed out or like this is a lot to take on because the intern hadn't prepared with our internship. We [00:08:20] require our interns to do their due diligence before they go to the rotation so that they know what is the mission? Who is their population?
[00:08:29] Beryl: If it's a hospital or long term care, We require them to brush up on their M. N. T. Before they go. It's a private practice. We require them to understand what is the private practice mission. [00:08:40] Who are they serving? Etcetera. We even give them suggested business activities to do before they get into the rotation so that they're at least and they're just moderately prepared so that they're not a deer in the headlights, and I guess also preceptors might feel like it's extra time [00:09:00] and to address that.
[00:09:02] Beryl: Yes, it is going to be a little bit of extra time. However, you're going to get a lot of value from this because our interns are going to help out with some of your day to day tasks anyway. They're going to help out with things that you didn't have time [00:09:20] for. Like, for example, let's say you want to make some new patient handouts and you haven't had time.
[00:09:25] Beryl: That's a perfect project for our interns. Or maybe you wanted to do a social media campaign and you didn't have time. Again, another great project that our interns can help with. And then I think if the preceptor carves out maybe like [00:09:40] quick, like 15 20 minute check in, you know, day to day and then maybe an end of the week, like 30 minute, 45 minute end of the week check in.
[00:09:48] Beryl: That's an appropriate amount of one on one time to spend with the intern, you know, for coaching and feedback. And I don't think it would take, it doesn't have to take a Ton of extra [00:10:00] time,
[00:10:00] Libby: right? I am a preceptor. I've precepted before for your interns and for other internships.
[00:10:06] Libby: And I do think that there are benefits. I think that the preceptor, meaning somebody who is going to take on an intern might not realize that there are some hidden benefits in being a preceptor, such as practicing leadership [00:10:20] skills, which is something that a lot of dietitians and we need to brush up on.
[00:10:24] Libby: So, when you are able to be in a position of helping somebody else it can definitely help you learn what some of your strengths and weaknesses are, and it might require organization with paperwork and helping support and mentor somebody, but that can also that's transfers exactly over to [00:10:40] our career trajectory.
[00:10:41] Libby: Additionally, we do get continuing education credits, right? For being a preceptor. So that is an incentive to help people who are, you know, Thinking should I, or should not I not take this? Cause it's a gamble. You might think you're not sure what have the intern isn't prepared. How do you handle that?
[00:10:55] Libby: Do you have the capacity, right? If you're trying to live a flexible lifestyle, like many of [00:11:00] our clients, you might have some hesitancy with taking on an intern. So one of the other benefits. that I've seen would be getting feedback feedback about your processes, feedback about something in your business that like you mentioned, they can work on a campaign for social media.
[00:11:14] Libby: There's other ways that you can ask a preceptor to help you out with things in the business, whether it's feedback on one of your online [00:11:20] programs, if you're running that, or again, it could be directly from them writing a blog post or helping you with getting some information for your business. Keywords are things in the back end.
[00:11:28] Libby: Maybe you've had in your to do list that you haven't been able to push forward. Is that feedback that you've gotten as well from some of the folks who precept your interns?
[00:11:37] Beryl: Yeah, I'm really, really glad that you brought up those points [00:11:40] too. And then yes, for continuing education, you can get six credits.
[00:11:45] Beryl: I think actually even more than that, but I know six right off the bat for doing the the preceptor training modules. I think you can get additional continuing education for, for simply precepting. So that's really great. I [00:12:00] think in addition to the leadership, you get the, the teamwork component and you also get the delegation component, which if you are a solopreneur, you're doing everything yourself and you're not used to having someone else help you do some of the the work.
[00:12:17] Beryl: I think that's a really valuable skill [00:12:20] for preceptors that are just starting out a private practice and they think, well, I don't have enough. I don't have a high patient workload or like, I don't have enough for the intern to do. Throw that thinking out the window. That's such a good opportunity to have a dietetic intern.
[00:12:37] Beryl: The intern can help you get your business off the [00:12:40] ground. When I started 10 years ago, I did not take an investment. I literally had. Dietetic intern every single month for like the first 12 months. I would get a different intern and they helped me start my business. It was amazing.
[00:12:57] Beryl: Yeah. Yeah. It, I mean, without [00:13:00] some of those interns, I just didn't have time to do like.
[00:13:03] Beryl: Develop the recipes, create the handouts, gosh, work on PowerPoints, research, so much helpful stuff that the interns got to do with BeComplete. So that was extremely valuable.
[00:13:15] Libby: I love that because anyone that's listening that is on the fence, I hope that you've [00:13:20] demystified that you have to have a certain level of experience or certain patient load to be able to take interns because that's obviously not true.
[00:13:27] Libby: What were the skills that you had to be able to make use of 12 interns? I mean, that obviously showcases your skill set. I'm assuming you knew how to delegate because that's a huge skill. And many of us, especially if we [00:13:40] don't have that business leadership background, we don't know how to properly communicate with somebody.
[00:13:45] Libby: And interns can sometimes feel scared that you're going to give them a bad review. So they might be a bit neat or not communicate fully because they might not have that life experience. Not always, just sometimes. What did you do?
[00:13:56] Libby: What skills did you have? And what do you recommend for preceptors who want [00:14:00] to practice delegation, but they might feel apprehensive?
[00:14:03] Beryl: Good question. So I have to think, think back to the past, but what I did was I would do a meeting with the intern before they started. I would also do an interview just to make sure that they were a good fit.
[00:14:18] Beryl: Cause I needed people that [00:14:20] had at least a little bit of tech savvy, a little bit of. organization, a little bit of professionalism. So I just made sure they were that before they even did a rotation with me. And then we would do a pre meeting before they started. I came up with a learning [00:14:40] plan for each of the interns.
[00:14:42] Beryl: I kind of like look to see what does the business need? Like what, what do we need in the next, call it like three to six months? And then I scaled it down. I created the intern learning plan and I gave them anywhere from like three to four, maybe five [00:15:00] max strategic projects that they would work on for the month.
[00:15:03] Beryl: And I would. Line it up to our D competencies and also interest of the intern. Now, okay. So you're thinking, Oh my gosh, that's a lot. I do have a business and project management background.
[00:15:16] Libby: Really, really good.
[00:15:18] Beryl: Yeah. So I'm not [00:15:20] like expecting, you know, someone without a business and project management background to like whip that out, but making it just like a little bit more, maybe more simple.
[00:15:28] Beryl: Before you take on an intern, just kind of think about where you want your private practice to go in the next six months. Or let's say you don't have a private practice. Let's say you have a clinical job or a [00:15:40] community job or a food job. Where do you want your job to go in the next six months?
[00:15:45] Beryl: And what are the biggest issues or challenges that your department is facing? So I list out, you know, three to five things and then go back to the RD competencies. And line it up and I can [00:16:00] guarantee you're going to have several projects that are right for a dietetic intern.
[00:16:05] Libby: That's so helpful. Such a great way to look at it.
[00:16:08] Libby: So just to summarize, if you're in a career and you don't have a private practice think about how you might want to improve or grow your career and then how you can meet the objectives of your organization to support that [00:16:20] goal. And then that can help you. Kind of frame out projects for the intern.
[00:16:23] Libby: If you're in your private practice and you want to grow, then you're going to want to think about your planning and some projects for that. It does assume that you have the skillset to think strategically about the future. And so if you're struggling with that what are some tips for people to feel more confident [00:16:40] about how to think, whether they are an employee or in a business, how to think big picture and break that down, maybe like a couple of project management tips.
[00:16:46] Libby: Okay,
[00:16:47] Beryl: it's really a good practice to come up with like an annual plan. And you can do this either at the end of the year or the beginning of a new year, and you focus on however many [00:17:00] goals you think is right for you to set, and then you say, what am I going to do this quarter, and then you make it a little more granularly, what am I going to accomplish this month, and then you can do your like day to day.
[00:17:13] Beryl: So I, do recommend that anyone does that, because if you don't have like that annual like that [00:17:20] bigger picture. Goal and plan. How do
[00:17:23] Libby: you know where you're going? I love that we teach that. Do you find that your peers and dietitians are thinking like that or is that something you teach them?
[00:17:32] Beryl: Well, we teach our students. We teach our interns
[00:17:35] Libby: Yeah,
[00:17:36] Beryl: we have our interns do that in the complete business dietetic [00:17:40] internship. It's amazing I I can't speak for my peers. I don't know. I hope they are
[00:17:45] Libby: Yeah, I mean, I as nerdy as this sounds, this is what I talk to my peers about and I and our clients and I can, I do not see dietitians doing this.
[00:17:53] Beryl: Oh, we
[00:17:54] Libby: teach this, but I don't see this happening. Okay. Private clients. And in our masterminds, we've got a lot of [00:18:00] pushback about quarterly goals and, and breaking down those big goals into pieces because a lot of dietitians they're not setting clear goals or they set too many.
[00:18:09] Libby: So, I do think that that's a, it's a skill in itself to be able to have the ability to set an annual goal and break down what the many goals that work towards. It's also called rocks and business. You're setting [00:18:20] rocks. That are the smaller goals to work towards that bigger goal. But. Maybe you're listening and you're saying, what are you talking about?
[00:18:25] Libby: I'm an expert at setting an annual goal and then breaking down that goal into pieces. So if that's you, great, let us know, send us an email and we can even share your story. And if you are struggling with that, just like Beryl said, a good place to start would be maybe sitting down and if you have it, if you're an employee, think about what you [00:18:40] want the future of your job to be, which we should be doing as dietitians anyway.
[00:18:43] Libby: And then if you're in your private practice, you know, what kind of growth goal is what you're looking for at the moment? And that can change your, it should change year after year, right? Yes. Awesome. Any final thoughts you have for those listening that kind of a summary or anything in the words of wisdom for those who now are not on the [00:19:00] fence because they're willing to precept now after this conversation.
[00:19:03] Beryl: You know, I want to end with a story. Okay. Love it. It's such a heartwarming story. One of our graduates, she's from California. She had been following this preceptor who's located in Texas for years, and she loved what the [00:19:20] preceptor was doing. She reached out to the preceptor. She said, I'm doing this business.
[00:19:25] Beryl: I'm Entrepreneurial dietetic internship. I'd love for you to be my preceptor. This preceptor was a solopreneur, no employees, you know, and but she said, you know, I'm happy to take you as a dietetic intern. The intern had the ability [00:19:40] to relocate for the rotation. They work side by side. They had really good rapport.
[00:19:46] Beryl: in our internship, we allow them to do what's called enrichment at the end. So the intern went virtually did another three more weeks with the preceptor just because they got along so well, the preceptor had a [00:20:00] specific strategic project that she needed the intern to help her with. Well, what happened was the project was so successful that the preceptor needed to hire someone.
[00:20:11] Beryl: So she hired our intern. It was her first employee. Yeah. Amazing. And the rest is history.
[00:20:18] Libby: I love that. Thank you for sharing [00:20:20] that story. What a great way to end the episode. And it just goes to show not only can you improve your leadership skills, but you can absolutely improve, like, the mission and vision of your company and your staff and all of that.
[00:20:30] Libby: So thank you for sharing that. Ending on a story is absolutely fantastic. It's been a pleasure to have you today, Beryl. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Libby.
[00:20:38] You know, in talking [00:20:40] about. Preceptors and being a preceptor for dietetic interns and all the wonderful things Beryl has to share. It reminded me of when I was an employee and I took dietetic interns and I precepted them. That wasn't my choice. I was a clinical dietitian and I was given interns and I had to work with them.
[00:20:56] But here's what I did after Beryl just explained strategic [00:21:00] goals and breaking them down and that great story about how this intern actually became an employee of the dietitian who she was an intern with. Which is an awesome story. It got me to think I want to share what happened with me. Now, I didn't think of it as systematically as barrel has explained where she has, you know, if you have a strategic goal, which we all do, [00:21:20] you know, breaking them down and having the intern help with that goal.
[00:21:23] I did that. I just didn't quite. explain it that way. I didn't think of it. It was more intuitive for me. So my vision was to see more patient visits at the hospital when I was working as a clinical dietician and with the dietetic intern helped me reach more visits because I was looking [00:21:40] at adding more value to the name of dieticians and then also looking at getting a raise by seeing more patients.
[00:21:46] Patients so that I had two ways of doing that running groups or seeing more individually. We all know that there's a limit to how many patients you can see individually per day. Like there's a threshold. So by taking dietetic interns, I allowed them to see patients. [00:22:00] I would review their notes and it allowed me to double or triple the amount of patients that were under me.
[00:22:05] But I was able to see per day, which could help me not only merit a raise, but also show the value that dietitians bring and how we have great outcomes for our patients. And we work collaboratively within a disciplinary team. So, until I wasn't able to. air quote [00:22:20] prove that project because I did end up quitting and taking dietitian boss full time, but I wanted to share that that was how I leveraged a dietetic intern during my employment as a clinical dietitian.
[00:22:31] Now here at dietitian boss we take interns as well and we take interns from KBDI from Beryl's internship and I've had them support me with a lot of [00:22:40] feedback. So I'm going to have to think a little bit more about strategic projects because the skill sets I'm That we usually need for strategic projects are very heavily tech related.
[00:22:48] So I'm going to have to think more on what I can do and how I can better use interns for the support of our strategic goal. But I have done that as a clinical dietitian. So Beryl's conversation today really got me thinking about [00:23:00] how I can better utilize dietetic interns and really reframe from thinking it's inconvenient to precept and have a dietetic intern to thinking that you are not only helping the future of dietitians, but you're also supporting your business goals.
[00:23:11] As long as you're staying organized and working on your. Communication and leadership skills.
[00:23:15] Looking for support to grow your dietitian business or even get started, [00:23:20] I invite you to join the library, our monthly affordable membership that shows you exactly what to do every step of the way so that you can create the business of your dreams. Not sure if it's the right time, the membership gives you an option to.
[00:23:34] Go at your own pace. We have modules, a roadmap to show you exactly what to do and monthly live [00:23:40] calls, as well as new content that we release every single month based on requests inside of the library. We have four stages of business. So whether you come in getting started or you want to enter the membership and grow or scale your business, we have the appropriate resources for you.
[00:23:54] And our team, including myself available to answer your questions, head on over to [00:24:00] dietitianboss. com and check out the library today. We'd love to see you there.
