[Nutrition team. Units of nutritional support]

Abstract

During the VIII National Congress of the Spanish Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (SENPE) held in Santander on 5th, 6th and 7th of June last, a subject was raised among several others, which for us was of great current interest and not often found in scientific affairs, related to the organizational affairs of the discipline of Artificial Nutrition, namely the Nutritional Teams or Nutritional Support Units. The aim was to respond to the many problems raised by this discipline: What does it consist of? Is it necessary? What is its purpose? Who is involved in it? What qualifications must these people have? Does it enter into competition with Nutritional, Clinical and Dietetic Services? To reply to these and many other questions, we invited a number of professionals with wide experience in nutritional and other fields, in an attempt to form a group of experts in different specialties with interests in the subject. We were also lucky enough to be able to invite Doctor Rombeau, an internationally-recognized expert, in whose country there exists great experience in the organization of these units. This summary of our Round Table was prepared by the organizer, Doctor Ordóñez, and an attempt was made to respect the spirit of each author's contribution.