Lily McWilliams, RD, LDN is an oncology dietitian at the Duke Cancer Center in Durham, North Carolina. Lily graduated from IUP in 2017 with a BS in Nutrition/ Dietetics.
What Is an Average Morning for Lily?
When Lily gets to the clinic, she grabs some coffee and eats her oatmeal while she schedules patients and plans her day.
What is an Average Afternoon for Lily?
Meeting with patients either during their clinic visits, during their treatments, via phone, or email, or she is writing notes.
Who Are Some of the People That Regularly Work With Lily?
She covers three clinics in the cancer center: brain, hemotology, and genitourinary cancers. Sharing an office with some of the other RDs who cover other clinics fosters a lot of great brainstorming and teamwork. Lily works alongside her patients' oncologists, surgeons, NPs, PAs, as well as the nurses, medical family therapists, and social workers in the clinic.
What Are Some of the Challenges of the Position?
Lily is still learning about all the different types of cancers and treatments that her patients are enduring, and she is also adjusting to the varying busy schedules of each of her clinics.
What Are Some of the Things That Lily Enjoys Most About Her Position?
Her favorite thing in the world is building quality relationships with her patients and their families, and feeling like she can help them manage this incredibly difficult time in their lives.
How Has Her IUP Education Benefited Lily in Her Career as an Oncology Dietitian?
She says that having a great foundation in her knowledge of nutrition, as well as being able to incorporate her minor in human development and family science, has been incredibly beneficial in recognizing the barriers to achieving adequate nutrition that may not be so clear-cut. This also helps Lily work with families to find the solution that works best for them and the patient.
What Is Lily's Advice to Prospective and Current IUP Food and Nutrition Students?
Gain as much experience as possible and utilize whatever connections that you have to do so!
What Are Lily's Plans for the Future?
As some point, Lily is considering transitioning into working with the pediatric population.