Katherine Schwenger, PhD, RD
University of Toronto

Dr. Katherine J. P. Schwenger, PhD, RD, is a Scientific Associate at the Toronto General Hospital where she is spearheading a hospital-wide malnutrition project at the University Health Network, including acute care, oncology, and rehabilitation. Leading an interdisciplinary team, this project aims to determine the effectiveness of quality improvement strategies to prevent, detect, and treat malnutrition. The collected data can be used by UHN healthcare professionals to address specific research questions relevant to these aims and to assess the impact of changes in nutrition care on clinical outcomes. This project has allowed Dr. Schwenger to further advocate for nutrition awareness and education through hospital-wide quality improvement pieces. At the start of the project, and through discussions with the interdisciplinary teams involved, it was identified that malnutrition screening was low across many units in the hospital. After identifying this, Dr. Schwenger proactively worked with the relevant teams to bring in quality improvement pieces to the projects, which also assisted in allowing the students to advance their knowledge of nutrition and get involved in nutrition education. With her help, students were able to create teaching materials that were presented to nurses and RDs across the relevant UHN sites. This has led to a tremendous increase in use of the Canadian Nutrition Screening Tool (CNST) and Subjective Global Assessment (SGA)  and nutrition awareness, which are parts of the first step in RD intervention and malnutrition screening.  

Dr. Schwenger's expertise extends to her other research themes: exploring the role of the intestinal microbiome in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and metabolic syndrome, investigating the role of the intestinal microbiome (IM), and metabolites in the pathogenesis and disease severity of these conditions. Dr. Schwenger has led and conducted countless initiatives for quality improvement in hospital practice as well as significantly aided in the production of research articles aimed at elucidating varying conditions and interventions under the broad field, such as the effects of varying bariatric surgery procedures on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).