legends of dietetics
The number one dietitian There were not enough trumpet-blasts and popping champagne corks to celebrate the launch of the fifth edition of The Manual of Dietetic Practice (fantastically edited by Joan Gandy), published in the summer of 2014.
Ursula Arens Writer; Nutrition & Dietetics
Ursula has spent most of her career in industry as a company nutritionist for a food retailer and a pharmaceutical company. She was also a nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation for seven years. Ursula helps guide the NHD features agenda as well as contributing features and reviews.
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Although this is more a dipping-into rather than a reading-through kind of book, there is a wonderful first page to this issue of MDP. It is a dedication to the outstanding and continuing contribution to dietetics of BDA member number 001: Edith Elliot. Of course, Edith is not the first member of the BDA; in fact, her period of chairmanship coincided with the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the BDA. The special number simply represents a point in time, while she was honorary chairman of the BDA, when the records of membership were transferred from lots of cards in an over-fulfilling cabinet, onto a computer database. But the special number of 001 is a fitting tribute to a very constant champion of our profession. Before dietetics was the defined and structured profession that it is today, it was a merging of professionals with interests in diet and health and with primary qualifications in nutrition, in nursing, in domestic science, or in catering management. Edith qualified as a nurse and as a midwife in 1960. Her first job was as a staff nurse at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, and she observed with interest the occasional instructions of consultants as to what foods particular patients should be given. Very rarely, some women come onto the ward to discuss foods with the consultant, or with the ward sister and then special plated foods arrived for particular patients. These women, Edith found out, were dietitians. What would have been rare encounters between a junior nurse and a dietitian, became more frequent as Edith went to work in ward 21, which was the pioneering metabolic and renal unit of the hospital. This was the work base for dietitians in
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the hospital and Edith was able to observe closely the field she became more and more interested in. Her nursing qualification was recognised as a valid basis for entry onto the 18-month course leading to a diploma in dietetics, which she completed in 1963 at the Northern Polytechnic in London (now, the London Metropolitan University). Edith then returned to ward 21 of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. Although she was now qualified as a dietitian, she continued to carry out many nursing duties as well and her job title was ‘sister/dietitian’. Her next job at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy also required balancing dietetic and nursing responsibilities. At some stage, career development required a focus on one or the other duty. Edith chose to jump fully into dietetics, because she enjoyed the subject and also because she felt it would allow her more patient contact (whereas highergrade nursing would have become increasingly administrative). Edith knew London from her student days doing her diploma in dietetics and, in 1972, she accepted the post of Chief Dietitian at St Mary’s Hospital. This was not a happy time professionally for Edith, as there was little support and recognition for the role of dietetics, which was lost somewhere between the controls of the medical consultant and the catering manager and, three years later, Edith accepted the post of District Dietitian in Nottingham. In August 1996, more than 20 years later, Edith retired from the NHS, and professional dietetics. But it is really Edith’s other career that is as inspirational. While she was a dietitian in Nottingham, her colleague asked whether she could ‘help out’ as assistant treasurer for the BDA; this would
