A Perspective on Preceptors
As the day approached to start my first day of rotations for my dietetic internship, I had so many mixed emotions! I was, of course, extremely nervous, but also very excited to get started and eager to learn. As part of orientation, our cohort discussed potential challenging experiences with preceptors and how to handle being in that situation. You sometimes hear horror stories from past interns (at other internships) about “bad preceptors” and I was hoping I would not have to utilize the skills learned during orientation.
Fortunately I did not have that experience during my time at my first rotation with the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department (SBCPHD), which is part of my community rotation. My preceptor, Susan Liles, who is the director of Nutrition Services at SBCPHD, is in short an amazing preceptor!
Susan gave me the opportunity to be involved in choosing my projects and also gave me the freedom and trust to complete them on my own. During counseling sessions she observed, she constantly pushed me and gave immediate, constructive feedback that has really helped in developing my counseling skills. I really appreciated, despite her busy schedule, that she always made time to do daily check-ins with me to see how my day went. I feel like Susan was not only a great preceptor and role model, but also a great overall person to work with as she cared about my wellbeing and asked about personal aspects of my life outside of my internship. Susan made my experience at the SBCPHD very meaningful and momentous.
Susan’s Story
Susan’s path to becoming the director at age 29 is impressive and inspiring. Susan grew up in San Francisco. As a young child, her mom was pre-diabetic and overweight and as part of her chores, Susan was in charge of preparing dinner. She typically cooked healthy Asian style meals for her family, as that is part of her culture. This is when she first became interested in cooking and dreamed of owning her own restaurant. She declared herself as a business major at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (SLO) but after learning what a Registered Dietitian was, and because of her love for cooking and interest in diabetes, Susan decided to switch to Nutrition.
As a Nutrition student, Susan made it a point to get involved with everything nutrition-related. She was the president of the Nutrition club, volunteered at various programs such as Head Start, WIC, and the food bank all while working for fair trade chocolate and a retirement center. After graduating from Cal Poly SLO, Susan completed her dietetic internship at the prestigious V.A. Medical Center in Los Angeles while getting her master’s from Long Beach.
Susan at first had a goal of working at a hospital; however, after completing a rotation at Orange County Children’s Hospital she was interested in working with kids. Following her internship, Susan taught nutrition at a special needs school and HIV clinic in Costa Rica for over 3 months.
Returning to the states, she was hired as an RD in San Francisco to collaborate with a P.E. teacher on a grant funded by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. This grant was geared to focus on energy balance for kids with play. Susan was then hired at West Contra Costa Unified School District as an RD. There, within one year, she implemented all of the new school lunch program policies into the menus, added three new salad bars, and converted the menu that was previously less than 25% of the foods manufactured in-house to 65%, and implemented after school snack programs.
Susan then got hired as the supervisor for South County with WIC at the SBCPHD. Last March, after three years working at WIC, she was hired as the director of Nutrition Services. She attributes her motivation to becoming the director to her value of staff opinion and that she wanted to make a difference.
If you are interested in hearing more from Susan, she is always open to taking volunteers and discussing her role at the SBCPHD! Her email is susan.liles@SBCPHD.org! Had a great experience with one of your preceptors? Share your story in the comments!