RDN Spotlight: Tatiana Vélez-Burgos, MS, RD, LDN, CPT
What is your ethnicity/race? Did your family have any customs related to food? Please describe.
Hispanic/Latino - Puerto Rican. Yes, we do have a LOT of customs related to food, the most common ones are around Christmas Time (that starts around November and ends in mid-January).
Where/when did you go to undergrad/dietetic internship/grad school?
University of Puerto Rico - Mayaguez, 2015 B.S. in Chemistry. The Ohio State University, 2017 M.S in Chemistry. Drexel University, 2019 M.S. in Human Nutrition. VA Caribbean Healthcare System, 2020, Dietetic Internship.
Why did you decide to choose nutrition and dietetics as a career?
I switched my profession from being a Chemist to a Dietetics major because I wanted to have a direct impact on the prevention of diseases, health, and lives of Puerto Rican individuals and the Hispanic community. As a Chemist, I viewed my career options to be limited to a lab setting and/or academia. I wanted to actually have interactions with people and realized later on that nutrition was the perfect field for me since it combines medical scientific background and people skills.
What do you do now as an RDN and what does a typical day/week look like for you?
I currently run my own private practice as an RDN! A typical day for me involves 4-6 hours of patient work, depending on the day, including counseling sessions and documentation. On a daily basis, I also work on administrative tasks (2-3 more hours) of bookkeeping, social media, and keeping up with the latest nutrition research.
What is/was the biggest challenge for you in becoming a dietitian and how did you overcome that challenge? This can be related to being an RD of color or not just any challenge?
The biggest challenge for me in becoming a Dietitian was that I barely knew any Puerto Rican RDs when I started my career switch from Chemist to Dietetics, thus I didn't really have a mentor I related to in my early years in this profession. Growing up, I did not consider being a dietitian a career option because I didn't know this career path existed. As I entered the field, navigating it was hard and I often felt alone since I was the only Hispanic student in my class. This is where I started looking for mentors, and resources for RDs of Color about a year and a half in. Having mentors that I related to in language and cultural values empowered me to continue in this field and overcome the challenges of feeling alone.
Have you had any mentors in your career if yes how have those mentors affected your career/life?
YES! I've had dietitian mentors that helped me navigate this field and my transition from Chemistry to Nutrition when I did my career change. I also had Hispanic/Latinx mentors in my time on the mainland that would help me connect to this field and build community.
Why do you think diversifying this field is important?
To address the needs of underrepresented communities. There's a huge need for RDs in my community but very few practicing RDs that can relate to customs/provide services in Spanish.
What is a piece of advice you would give a student of color interested in entering the field of dietetics?
Find a mentor that you trust in the field you want to be in. This will help you feel like you belong and give you a guiding hand when you feel like you're alone.