Summer School Stories: Staying active with the NNEdPro community continues to open doors and create

Summer School 2018 alumni, Emily Fallon shares her story and what she’s been up to just one year after attending the Summer School

I thoroughly enjoyed attending the NNEdPro summer school last year as not only did I learn all about nutrition, public health, and wellbeing from world-leading researchers and practitioners, and develop my networks in the area. I realised that my decision to become an Associate Nutritionist and study for a MSc Human Nutrition was definitely the right path.

These were my initial take home messages from my summer school experience, but at almost one year later the summer school has opened doors and opportunities that I had never anticipated, and certainly were not included in my initial take homes.

Since attending the 2018 NNEdPro summer events, I have enjoyed remaining an active part of the NNEdPro Global Centre for Nutrition and Health.

Staying involved one year on

My journey started by being nominated to be a member of the Global Research, Education and Innovation Panel, where I am part of a multidisciplinary team of academics, nutritionists, dietitians, medics and a range of other healthcare professionals. We are committed to support projects and initiatives that promote global nutrition education. My involvements thus far have included participating in monthly teleconference meetings, providing written input to public health policy documents such as for the World Health Organisation, and promoting NNEdPro activities on social media.

In extension, I am working in close collaboration with NNEdPro for my MSc research project where I am honoured to work with Professor Sumantra Ray, the founding director of NNEdPro, and Professor Susan Lanham-New, the head of department of nutritional sciences at the University of Surrey, as my supervisors.

I aim to investigate the vitamin D knowledge, attitudes, and practice of UK practising doctors and nurses, with the purpose to inform public health initiatives and develop professional guidelines and education for healthcare professionals to improve vitamin D health and recommendation compliance. Furthermore, I hope that our research evidences the importance of harnessing medical and healthcare nutrition education for disease prevention.

To share your thoughts and participate in the survey, please click here.

I had the honour of piloting my research questionnaire at the British Medical Journal International Quality and Safety in Healthcare conference with NNEdPro.

Through this I was grateful to become a part of the Nutrition Education Policy in Healthcare Practice executive project management committee. As a team we presented a nutrition education workshop to an international heterogenous audience of healthcare practitioners which we will deliver to 4 other locations throughout the UK in a roadshow which I am very excited to be a part of.

My other responsibilities in this project have included providing feedback on the content for the nutrition workshop and offering written input for a UK parliamentary brief regarding the importance of nutrition education in medical practice and healthcare.

To read the CN article about our pilot work in Glasgow click here.

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