I just took my child to a nutrition appointment.
1. From the gates, my child weight was recorded which included a winter coat and bag full of stuff in hand.
2. Immediately sat down and said my child is overweight and if she looked would have seen that it’s muscle. This was based solely on her weight and didn’t take into consideration her height until I said something later.
3. Said doesn’t restrict foods for the sake of mental health. A nutritionist that doesn’t provide nutritional advice.
4. Only recommended exercise without recommending type of exercise, routine, anything. Just exercise. Then silence. Her job was done. If we just said okay, the visit would have been over in 60 seconds.
5. Didn’t ask what brought us in, no nutritional recommendations until AFTER I told her what we needed (which wasn’t even asked). The reason for the referral was to prevent our child from becoming diabetic.
6. Handed us printouts from the wall even though we told her she’s a picky eater, doesn’t eat any fruit or vegetable willingly, and a bunch of other stuff. Nothing said it given was specific to the child.
7. I asked if she had experience with working picky autistic children. At first she didn’t answer, then she said she has ‘seen patients that are autistic’… but anytime my child moved or stood up, she stopped talking and stared at her like she was afraid that something was about to happen.
8. At one point, my daughter stood up to get something and she immediately walked out the room without a word, and it was so awkward and offensive. She clearly has zero experience with autistic children and cares nothing about my child. Dad and I stared at each other in disbelief. She literally ran away from our kid after telling us she doesn’t recommend cutting foods out of a child’s diet because it ‘hurts their self esteem.’
9. She’s the only dietitian in the office, so my child couldn’t even be seen by someone else.
This is not service. This is less than minimal work, to basically say you don’t provide nutritional services to children and still get paid for it. Didn’t care what she was there for, not helping us with our direct nutritional needs, and have the nerve to act like someone was about to hurt or rob you. I got the Bronx treatment: I won’t offer any real services and I’m still going to get paid for it. This is the first time I’ve been to St Barnabas, and this experience was so degrading that I wouldn’t even dare try any of their other clinics.
