DIET & NUTRITION: Finding an oncology nutritionist, part I

I was fortunate to have spent a very informative hour on the phone today with Tinrin Chew, RD, CSO, one of only a couple hundred oncology nutritionists board-certified by the American Dietetic Association.

She is also a contributor to one of the best chemo books ever written, The Chemotherapy Survival Guide by Judith McKay and Tamera Schacher. In fact Tinrin is the architect of the book's dietary chapter, "Maintaining Good Nutrition."

Because of the enormous importance of good nutrition during anti-cancer therapy and because an oncology nutritionist is rarely if ever an integral player on a patient's oncology team, I asked her how someone about to start chemo or any treatment can go about finding qualified and lymphoma-specific guidance on diet and nutrition.

HER SUGGESTIONS

Check with the staff
There may be a nutritionist available to you at the clinic or hospital where you receive treatment, but you'll never know if you don't ask so check with a social worker, staff, or admin. Don't count on your oncologist or oncology nurses to provide you with complete nutritional information. Odds are they'll merely give you an ACS or NCI booklet on nutrition.

Search locally
Another option is to go to the ADA's web site, eatright.org, and click on FIND A REGISTERED DIETITIAN on the upper right, then fill in the blanks. In the 'Specialty' section, highlight 'Oncology'. Call the names that come up and ask them if they have any experience with Hodgkin's or non-Hodgkin's patients. This is important because all cancers are different and their treatments differ; a nutritionist familiar with the toll taken on the body by, say, ABVD or R-CHOP is going to better understand what you're going through.

Don't count on your Insurance to cover this, but this shouldn't prevent you from calling your carrier and asking. Nor should it prevent you from calling the local nutritionists. Tinrin says she sees her patients three times: prior to the first chemo cycle, sometime in the middle, and when the regimen is finished. Ask about how many appointments you'll have, the cost, and precisely what you'll get in return.