By Ilene Cohen, MS, RDN, CDCES, C-IAYT, Owner/Founder/CEO of RefreshRD, LLC
So many of my students ask me what my inspiration was in starting RefreshRD (now RefreshRD, LLC based on Santa Monica, CA but we’re nationwide so you don’t have to live in Cali to work with us!😃 ) my tutoring and test preparation company that has tutored hundreds of students to become Registered Dietitians since 2015. So, here’s my story. This is both personal and professional but it’s all so true! Flashback to 2015 when I was trying to grow my NYC-based private nutrition counseling practice, PranaSpirit Nutrition & Wellness and I had just got in network with insurance companies. I was excited to continue my career goals of providing Medical Nutrition Therapy and nutritional counseling specializing in gastrointestinal conditions when I got some alarming news after my annual physical. I didn’t expect a phone call from my doctor a few days after my physical to call him, only to find out that they found what appeared to be a tumor in my right kidney. After other tests, including an MRI and sonograms, I decided to use my COBRA insurance to make an appointment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer. Two weeks later, surgeon (who saved my 85% of my kidney and my life!) performed laparoscopic surgery and removed the tumor (which we discovered to have been stage 1 kidney cancer). Read on as I’m currently healthy, and it all gets better 😇
Phase 1: 2015-2016 During this time, I had to temporarily close my private practice, cancel my trip to attend FNCE, and just about everything career related. I had been working as a Spanish tutor on the side of my private practice with a tutoring company. I did some online tutoring but mostly in person and it was a great experience (aside from surprisingly decent pay). While I was in recovery, I was contacted by a few dietitians who saw that I tutored for the company and asked if I could tutor them for the RD exam since they failed the exam. I was in recovery from surgery and agreed to tutor them online from my brother and sister in law’s dining room (my apartment in Manhattan was a 5th floor walkup – not an option after major surgery). I told them that I had a lot of work experience as an RDN so I’d be happy to work with them. I worked with small handful of students and they all passed the RD exam after some sessions with me! I thought to myself, “Huh, there must be a need for this out there”.
Phase 2 2016-2018; I decided to create packages based on the fact that some of my students passed after doing 10 1:1 tutoring sessions. After my students passed the exam, they started referring me to their friends;.their friends passed and then fast forward to 2017 when we developed the RefreshRD website (and gave my company a name!). We started adding testimonials to the website. We started this Facebook page and designed a logo, choose some colors that I felt reflected what we did to enable me to help more students! My schedule started getting booked and I was balancing my nutrition therapy private practice and seeing patients with tutoring for the RD exam. Then in 2018 I told myself that it was time to create group classes to prepare students for the RD exam as there was definitely a need! I taught all 5 classes (at the time) myself and I had great success! The majority of students in the RefreshRD Success coursepassed the exam after taking it. Now I was really onto something.
Phase 3: 2018 – Present – I realized that I couldn’t do all of this myself, even though I was extremely well versed having worked in so many practice settings including diabetes, as a Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist (CDCES), renal having had 2 part time jobs in dialysis centers, another in a bariatric surgery center and of course in my integrative and functional medical nutrition therapy private practice specializing in GI conditions and food allergies, intolerances and sensitivities, So I hired a few Registered Dietitians as consultants to tutor students and help me with teaching the group classes and we continued to help dietitians to become RDNs!
Phase 4: 2019 – Present – I hired an amazing research expert to teach the domain 1 research class and we started an independent research study. Through our interventions (which we are looking at the improvements in test scores through tutoring / test preparation and engagement and we hope to publish our research) pass rates range for all years 2016 – 2019 combined range from 58% to 100% depending on the RefreshRD program for repeat test takers. The national average pass rate for repeat test takers is 37%, and the lowest percentage at 33% in 2019, compared with RefreshRD’s pass rate for repeat test takers at 60% in 2019 – just about double!Check out more on the research page on our website, we update as we have new information!
So RefreshRD™ started as the first company to provide 1:1 RD exam tutoring services and RD exam test preparation live online group classes in the nation and that’s the story of how it was born! I’ve developed and refined my signature strategy and program (which is in the process of becoming Federally Trademarked brand method 😀 after having taught thousands of tutoring sessions and classes and our ongoing independent research study showing our pass rates to be almost double the national average, we couldn’t love what we do any more! If you are an aspiring RDN, I invite you to join our Facebook group, RD Exam Success Strategy by RefreshRD, where we provide tips and inspiration from our tutors and dietitians who passed through working with us. Follow us on Instagram too for more visual daily inspiration.
Happy 4th!
