Laura Schoenfeld: I’m assuming you are asking about somebody to hire in person, which obviously makes your search a little bit more challenging, because if you were looking for someone virtual, there are a lot of people that are working around not only North American, but in other countries that are nutritionists that teach these principles. I know that you’d be able to find someone if you were looking for someone virtually, and it shouldn’t be that challenging. A good way to find someone virtually is finding blogs or even Facebook groups. Kelsey and I are in a Facebook group that is geared towards Paleo RDs specifically, so it’s a little bit of a specific population. It’s not only Paleo nutritionists, but it’s actually registered dietitians, and I think there are between 200 and 300 of us in that group. If you’re looking for somebody locally and you wanted to ask Kelsey or me to put out a little feeler into that group, I’d be happy to do that.
If you’re looking for specific credentials, it’s really hard because honestly I don’t know if the credentials are … First of all, it depends on where you’re working. If you’re in a state that requires someone to have an RD degree to do nutrition counseling or if you’re an MD and you’re legally allowed to supervise someone who doesn’t have an RD, then that will affect what credentials you have to get for someone in person. I think the RD credentials for someone who tells you that they’re interested in Paleo and ancestral health, that kind of think, is actually a really good thing to have. I think a lot of RDs get flak because of the typical program being so conservative and teaching out-of-date information. Everyone thinks RDs come out just learning the food pyramid or something. There are different programs that are going to be different levels of informative. I’d say someone with a master’s degree is probably going to be better than someone that doesn’t have one, but that said, I think the best thing to do would be to make sure that whoever you are looking to hire, first of all, make sure that they’re legally allowed to do the job. If you’re hiring someone in person, just check with your state to find out what the laws are about nutrition counseling and if you are allowed to supervise them and then they don’t need a certain type of licensure. I know in North Carolina you have to have an RD degree to do nutrition counseling unless, I believe—and don’t quote me on this—but I believe if someone is supervised by an MD, like a medical doctor, that they can potentially do it without an RD degree.
There’s also the NTP program that I’ve heard good things about. I don’t know how much clinical information they get taught there, so I can’t really speak to the level of biochemistry that they go through, the level of clinical learning about medications and certain lab values and that kind of thing. I don’t know what they learn, so I can’t really say for sure whether or not someone would be a good fit for a medical practice.
Honestly, at the end of the day, you really just need to talk to the person that you’re looking to hire and see what their principles are. I remember one time I was … not working with a doctor, but becoming someone he could refer to, and he had me come into the office, and he just kind of did a rapid fire of questions. He said, “What if I had a patient that had X, Y, Z going on? What would you do?” It was a little bit stressful for me because I was not expecting it to be so intense, but I will say that that would be a good way—if you can do it in a little bit of an aggressive way—to weed out potential applicants. Give them a case study. Basically say, “I have this client and this is their situation. What would you do with this person?” Look to see what they recommend. See if it’s something that you feel like you’re on board with. Say, you give them a written case assignment. If they return their answer and you’re like, I would never do this, then you know, OK, this person is probably not a good fit for me, but if you give them the case study and they answer in a way that you’re on board with and you feel like generally is the same way that you would approach the patient, then that’s probably a really good way to weed out people that aren’t a good fit for you.
Like I said, if you’re looking for someone who’s virtual, there are hundreds of us around the country that you could easily get hooked up with as far as having a good referral. Like I said, if you’re looking for someone, I’m happy to put an announcement out to the group that I’m in, the Paleo RDs group, but I’d say that an RD or maybe an NTP, depending on what state you’re in and what the laws are about that, those would be the two. There’s also CNC. I think it’s … oh, shoot, I forgot what that’s called. There is another credential that’s pretty good, but I can’t remember what it is. Honestly, though, if somebody is an RD with a Paleo bent, you’re going to be pretty happy with that person as far as their level of training, their licensure, and also if they’re on board with the Paleo, ancestral health thing, then you already know that they’re going to be talking about the same kind of things that we’re talking about in this course.