Veronica McLymont, R.D., CDN
Director, Food and Nutrition Services
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York City
Imagine lying in your hospital bed, selecting a nutritious dinner and having it delivered at your convenience. That?s exactly what patients at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center can do, thanks to Veronica McLymont, director of Food and Nutrition Services. McLymont joined Sloan-Kettering as the manager of Clinical Nutrition and Patient Services and assumed her current role in 2007. ?[My] mission in the department is to provide excellent food that enhances nutrition and is served with ultimate hospitality,? she says.
A native of Jamaica, West Indies, McLymont says becoming aware of? ?the ability to translate the food that we eat into health? sparked her interest in nutrition. She began her career as a clinical teaching dietitian at Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., followed by leadership roles in nutrition in hospitals in New York and Maryland. With an adjunct professorship of nutrition biochemistry and human nutrition at Rockland Community College, McLymont has more than 30 years? experience in the field. ?I would like to see people taking more responsibility for their health as it relates to what they eat and their activity level,? she remarks.
In 2008, the American Society
for Health Care Foodservice Administrators voted McLymont a ?Trendsetter.? The National Institutes of Health recently invited her to participate in an operational review of their Clinical Center Nutrition Department. Co-author of several nutrition articles, quoted in numerous publications, and a frequent lecturer on nutrition, she plans to pen her own books on motivation, nutrition and cooking.
A registered dietitian and a certi-fied dietitian-nutritionist, McLymont earned a master?s degree in nutrition from Hunter College, a bachelor?s in foods and nutrition from Brooklyn College, and is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in organizational leadership at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. She is a board member of the American Society for? Healthcare Food Service Administra-tors Association.
