Jane Winter, APD, is Nestlé Health Science’s Medical Affairs Manager, and brings several decades of experience in clinical, community and academic dietetics to her professional work. She is also a PhD candidate at Deakin University.
Dietitian Connection recently enjoyed the chance to catch up with Jane and learn more about her professional life.
Day in the Life:
Wondering what a typical workday is like for an industry professional in a position such as Jane’s? The short answer is, there is no typical day – which keeps her work fluid and interesting.
On any given day, you can find Jane wearing numerous hats for Nestlé Health Science. She’s a marketing professional, authoring materials for internal and external audiences; a training leader, educating the sales team from a medical perspective, or organising enrichment seminars; and a liaison to the health care industry, meeting with a range of professionals (including speech pathologists, dietitians, doctors and nurses) to make sure that Nestlé Health Science’s products and services are relevant to their patient’s needs.
Working Across Time Zones:
Lest we think her work is limited to the domestic front, Jane also joins teams comprised of her colleagues from around the world to work on Nestlé Health Science projects.
“I’ve been able to attend meetings in Hong Kong, and in a number of different places in Europe,” shares Jane. “The work is really varied, encompassing marketing, regulatory, project management and education.”
Fresh Starts:
Jane landed in her current position after logging extensive experience across multiple facets of health science, from clinical to academic and government. With this knowledge under her belt from such varied perspectives, she decided she was ready for a change – and a new challenge. Enter her role at Nestlé Health Science.
A key advantage she finds to working in her current position is the opportunity to travel and work with people from all over the world.
Keeping up with Technology:
Jane’s relationship with technology is a love-hate one. She is (wisely, some might say) resistant to being drawn into the time-sucking vortex that is social media, noting she certainly hasn’t been able to embrace it. “I tend to watch it without much participation,” Jane notes. We suspect she’s able to enjoy more hours in her day due to this decision!
The Value of Mentors:
Jane is both a mentor – and has been mentored herself. Of these experiences, she shares, “I have a couple of people that I look up to in the work area. What I admire most is that they seem brave in their choices, and back themselves in their decisions.” In turn, Jane says she tries to do the same for those who are starting out in their careers – “not always very successfully,” she admits, with candour.
Her PhD Work:
Jane’s PhD is in the area of nutrition for the elderly in the community. She shares, “My first project was probably the most significant: a meta-analysis showing that lowest mortality amongst older adults is at a BMI between 27 and 28, with an increased risk at BMIs below 23.” Jane says that these results were likely intuitive for dietitians already, so it was nice to provide the evidence. Jane also found, through her research, that it is possible to implement nutrition screening in a GP setting as a routine part of practice. “The next step is to make it happen more broadly,” she notes.
Connect with Jane Winter on LinkedIn.