Doctors For Nutrition 2024: Year In Review
- Rebecca Stonor, CEO
- 18 Dec 2024
As 2024 draws to a close, we’re excited to reflect on the year that was and share the remarkable milestones the team at Doctors For Nutrition have achieved over the past 12 months.
Leadership transition
This year marked a significant leadership change as Sarah Warner stepped down as CEO to dedicate more time to her family. Sarah has been an integral part of the organisation since the beginning and remains a vital part of our team as Finance and Development Lead. We’re thrilled to have welcomed Rebecca Stonor as our new CEO, ushering in a new chapter for DFN. Rebecca brings a wealth of knowledge in, and lived experience with, whole food plant-based nutrition.
Launching our membership program
A key highlight of the year was the launch of our DFN membership program, offering our community exclusive access to online courses, past webinars, and our Nutrition in Healthcare conference recordings. The membership was launched not only for healthcare professionals, but also for the general community, students and concession card holders, empowering all with the vital knowledge of whole food plant-based nutrition. In just a few months, we’ve welcomed over 100 members, including five gifted memberships to medical students at the AMSA Global Health Conference.
Expanding our digital reach
Over the past six months, our dedicated team has worked hard to ensure a smooth transition to an improved email marketing platform and learning management system for our course delivery, enabling a seamless experience for our supporters.
During this time, our digital presence continues to thrive:
- 48,232 active website users explored our resources, with the What is WFPB page and recipe collection leading in popularity.
- 8,520 newsletter subscribers, growing steadily by 63 new signups per month.
- 21,287 social media followers, with 100 joining monthly to stay connected.
Our valued subscribers were kept abreast of news, views and insights across the plant-based community through our bi-monthly e-newsletter.
Promoting the Lifestyle Medicine Certification in our region
From May 2024, in partnership with the International Board of Lifestyle Medicine (IBLM), DFN was excited to offer the certification pathway for physicians and healthcare professionals in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands to become an IBLM Diplomate (dipIBLM).
The alignment between IBLM and Doctors For Nutrition reflects a shared vision of a world free from preventable disease, enabling everyone to thrive and live to their full potential. As exam registrations close for 2024, we anticipate reopening registrations in the new year.
Encouraging the community to optimise health
The new DFN Health Challenge was launched in October to our community. Similar to our Doctors Health Challenge which ran in late 2023, this new offering has been made available to the wider community for enrollment so that they too can experience the life-changing benefits of a whole food plant-based diet. This program has been specifically tailored to Australian and New Zealand audiences, offering practical guidance on how to source healthy, affordable ingredients from local supermarkets.
Our voice in the media
Co-Founder and Chair of the Board, Dr Heleen Haitjema, was invited to participate in a debate on the new Sky News ‘The Jury’ program where she provided her expert opinion on the pressing need to decrease red meat consumption to counteract the damaging environmental and climate consequences of meat production.
Dr Haitjema was also interviewed by the Plantrician Project’s Co-Founder and Board Chair, Dr Scott Stoll, for their long-standing friendship and 13 years of attending their conferences. Dr Haitjema was honoured to be the longest-attending delegate at the International Plant-Based Nutrition Healthcare conference this year in Anaheim.
Empowering health professionals
Our Prescribing Nutrition course continued to transform how healthcare professionals learn about and prescribe whole food plant-based nutrition. Participants’ feedback underscores the course’s life-changing potential:
Of the 123 new enrollees this year:
- 100% felt more confident discussing plant-based diets with patients.
- 91% were inspired to make personal dietary changes themselves.
Keeping a close eye on the Australian Dietary Guidelines Review
In February this year, the National Health and Medical Research Council called for expressions of interest for experts to join a sustainability working group as a part of the Australian Dietary Guidelines review process. We shared this communique with our audience and encouraged their participation in the review.
Sustainable diets (accessible, affordable and equitable diets with low environmental impacts) were identified as one of the priority areas during the prioritisation process for the Australian Dietary Guidelines review. Given the shift to adopt sustainable dietary guidelines in many countries worldwide, Australia is well on the way to potentially ensuring a similar change in focus.
Hosting live events and webinars
This year, we hosted four live webinars and two CPD-approved Food Vitals webinars. More than 1000 people signed up, with the majority of attendees being healthcare professionals. Topics ranged from ‘Ageing: the role of nutrition’ with Dr Michael Greger to ’Sustainability and diet’ and ‘Five proven benefits of a plant-based diet for sports performance’ each with a panel of international experts
Advocacy and face-to-face engagement
We connected directly with hundreds of health professionals, medical students and the general community at events like our Dine with a Doc Dinner in Melbourne and Auckland, GPCE in Sydney, and the Vegan Festival Adelaide, distributing over 1,800 resources.
We heard memorable feedback such as “It’s sad that we are not taught this in medical school. We are only taught about prescribing pills” and “Thank you for the work you do, it has been life-changing”, reinforcing the importance of our attendance at these events to share our mission.
Shocked at Dairy Australia’s presence in the primary school curriculum, Dr Heleen Haitjema has written to Ministers for Education across most of Australia, calling for an immediate end to the Discover Dairy education program. Visiting the MUSE Global School in LA gave us insight into how sustainability and plant-based nutrition can be successfully taught in schools, with immeasurable benefits for the community.
Looking ahead
As we prepare for 2025, our team are focused on a variety of projects and campaigns.
We will continue expanding tools and resources to help the community sustainably transition to a whole-food, plant-based diet. We are excited to offer our community new courses and an interactive dietary assessment tool in 2025. Our popular webinars, in-person events, cooking demonstrations, and members-only exclusive activities will be offered throughout the year.
Our team will progress with advocacy projects, including plans to develop educational resources for schools in Australia and New Zealand. We will also position ourselves to respond to the draft Australian Dietary guidelines when they are released.
Thank you to our dedicated community of supporters and team for making this year one to remember. Together, we’re creating a world free from preventable diseases where everyone can thrive and live to their full potential.
Together, we can keep the momentum going!
