Unless you grew up in Haines, you have probably told your story of how you got to this small town many, many times.
I grew up in East Hartford, Connecticut, a suburb of Hartford. I visited Haines for a few summers through middle school and high school, until my mom and sister decided to move up to Haines full-time. I followed and finished my last two years of high school here.
While in high school, I met Kyle. After we graduated, we went to the University of Alaska Anchorage. He played basketball for their Division II team and majored in accounting; I started with a biology major, which focused into dietetics and nutrition.
After we graduated from undergrad, Kyle went to Germany and played a year of professional basketball while I stayed in Alaska and completed my graduate internship. Dietitians must complete an internship with practicum and work experience at various sites (hospitals, outpatient clinics, WIC offices, etc).
In addition to my clinical and outpatient experience in Anchorage, I spent a month in Nome at the Norton Sound Health Corporation, expanding my knowledge about rural health care, and a month in Fairbanks at the Center for Alaska Native Health Research, honing my research and evidence-based-practice tools.
When we reconvened the following spring for our honeymoon, I scheduled my exam to become a registered dietitian nutritionist and we decided to leave Anchorage. The city had served us well through college, but it was time to move on. We settled on Haines for the summer, with an unknown for where we would go in the fall.
Perhaps Kyle would go to Germany for basketball again. Maybe we would move somewhere in the lower 48 for job opportunities. The one option that didn't occur to us at the time was to stay in the most beautiful place we knew: Haines, Alaska.
However, that changed when I talked with Dr. Chris Thorgesen. He heard through a family friend that I was a dietitian in the community and offered me an open office within his practice, Klondike Chiropractic LLC.
Soon after I started establishing my private practice, Kyle and I signed our year-long lease and made plans to set down our first roots as a married couple in Haines. Even if Kyle has the opportunity to head to Germany next year for basketball, I'll stay in Haines as the dietitian nutritionist.
I've been working as a private practice dietitian for 8 weeks, and I've already learned a lot about small-town business, advertising, and being a dietitian in a small town.
I don't food-shame or judge what people eat. I believe that food serves more than one purpose - it nourishes your body as well as your soul. All food is good, and some is better than others. And I definitely believe that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I hope that if you agree, we can chat about food sometime.
Kate Fossman, RDN, LD
KateFossmanRDN@gmail.com
