ABOUT RENEWED PRACTITIONER
Bringing whole-person care into practice.
Practical education to help clinicians respond to spiritual needs, grief, and distress with clarity, compassion, and professional boundaries.
Meet your instructor
Mary Gannon Kaufmann, MS, RDN, MA, BCC
Registered Dietitian Nutritionist
Board Certified Healthcare Chaplain
I bring together clinical nutrition and healthcare chaplaincy to help practitioners recognize and respond to the whole person.
Drawing on experience in diabetes care, addiction treatment, palliative care, and hospice, I teach practical spiritual care skills grounded in compassion, evidence, and professional boundaries.
The story behind Renewed Practitioner
I’ve Always Been Curious About What’s Beneath the Behavior.
Early in my career as a registered dietitian, I learned that knowing what to do isn't always enough to change behavior.
Working with people experiencing eating disorders made something clear: food and health behaviors rarely tell the whole story.
What people believe about themselves, their relationships, experiences, and lives can profoundly shape the choices they make and what they share with us.
I wanted to understand the person behind the behavior—not simply teach another nutrition fact.
I wanted to help people grow and transform.
That curiosity became a thread throughout my professional journey.
The Patient Who Changed How I Practiced
She was recovering from throat cancer and struggling with failure to thrive. She drove 50 miles each way to see me, even though dietitians were available much closer to home.
As I cared for her, I slowed down and asked a question I might normally have reserved for my role as a chaplain:
“How are you dealing with all of this? When you go through something like this, don't you start asking different questions of life?”
She began to cry.
“Do you know something? After all I've been through this last year, you are the first person to ask me that.”
That moment changed how I understood my work.
When I slowed down enough to care for both the clinical needs and the human before me, patients opened up. There was mystery there that brought more flourishing well-being.
I began to see that the questions we ask—and the presence we bring to the answers—can become part of care. It changed how I understand this work as a health care clinician.
That became the seed of Renewed Practitioner.
“After all I've been through this last year, you are the first person to ask me that.”
I came to know them deeply, and healing had room to happen.
The Bridge
My work has brought together worlds that are often kept separate:
Nutrition and clinical care.
Human behavior and motivation.
Theology and spirituality.
Spiritual direction and chaplaincy.
I don't see these as competing approaches. Each offers a different way of understanding the human person.
My training and experience across these disciplines have taught me that science and spirituality don't have to be separated for healthcare to remain evidence-based.
We can keep our technical expertise while expanding our capacity to see—and care for—the whole person.
That is the bridge Renewed Practitioner seeks to build.
What I Believe About Healthcare
In clinical care, we don't work with biochemistry and physiology alone.
We work with human persons—in living color—who bring their whole selves into the encounter.
Every person has a deep capacity for meaning, beauty, connection, love, hope, and something greater than themselves. When these dimensions of life become thwarted, the pain often surfaces as overeating, addiction, restriction, or other ways of negative coping & experiences.
This doesn't mean that every health behavior has a spiritual cause.
It means there is always a person behind the behavior, and that person deserves to be seen.
Dietetics emerged alongside modern science, giving us remarkable tools for nutrition, physiology, and disease management. Nursing is an ancient field and a leader in spiritual care nursing.
But technical prowess is not enough. Reclaiming our capacity to care for the whole person isn't a departure from good healthcare- it is an expansion of it.
True practice calls us to integrate both clinical excellence and authentic human presence
What renews us from within
I believe there is a sacred depth to each person—a divine spark that illness and suffering do not erase. My work makes room for that inner life: what gives us meaning, sustains hope, and helps us grow strong in the transcendent within.
Through practical spiritual care, I help practitioners attend to these sources of healing and renewal while honoring each person’s beliefs, faith, and way of understanding life.
From Practitioner to Educator and Thought Leader
My work has continued to grow beyond the patient encounter into education, professional formation, and the broader conversation about whole-person care.
Teaching the Next Generation of Practitioners
Today, I teach and facilitate healthcare professionals who want to develop practical skills for integrating spiritual care into everyday clinical practice.
Through Renewed Practitioner, I lead interactive learning experiences for dietitians, nurses, health coaches, and other healthcare professionals—helping them translate the concepts of meaning, purpose, spirituality, and whole-person care into skills they can actually use with patients.
I especially value the learning that happens when professionals come together to reflect on their own experience, practice new ways of being present, and learn from one another.
This is more than information. It is formation—learning to bring both clinical expertise and human presence to the care of another person.
The Book That Became a Foundation for the Work
The Renewed Practitioner: How Spiritual Care Transforms Nutrition, Dietetics & Lifestyle Medicine
I wrote The Renewed Practitioner to give healthcare professionals a practical starting point for bringing spiritual care into clinical practice.
The book explores how meaning, purpose, spirituality, compassionate presence, and reflective practice can enrich nutrition, dietetics, and Lifestyle Medicine—while honoring professional boundaries and the unique beliefs and values of each person.
The book also serves as the foundation for several of my professional education programs, where participants move from reading about spiritual care to practicing it.
Contributing to the Conversation
The need for whole-person care is increasingly being recognized across healthcare education and practice. I am grateful to contribute to this growing conversation through teaching, research, writing, and professional collaboration.
In June 2026, I presented at the 10th European Conference on Religion, Spirituality and Health in Basel, Switzerland, including Elevating Practice: The Missing Link in Training Nurses and Allied Health Professionals in Spiritual Care. The conference brought together an international community exploring spirituality and health within modern healthcare.
I also co-authored the 2026 American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine article, “Integrating Meaning, Purpose, and Spirituality (MPS) Within Lifestyle Medicine Education and Training: Core Competencies to Support Whole-Person Care.” The paper examines competencies for incorporating MPS into Lifestyle Medicine education, including spiritual self-awareness, ethical and culturally sensitive practice, spiritual assessment and communication, compassionate presence, and collaboration with spiritual care professionals.
For me, this work is part of the same journey that began years ago at the bedside and in the nutrition counseling room:
How can we care for the whole person while maintaining the clinical excellence healthcare requires?
That remains the question at the heart of Renewed Practitioner.
Continue the Conversation
If you believe healthcare can be both clinically excellent and deeply human, I invite you to explore what’s possible.
Whether you are a dietitian, nurse, health coach, physician, or other healthcare professional, Renewed Practitioner offers practical education and formation to help you bring greater attention to meaning, purpose, spirituality, and what matters most in the care of the people you serve.
You don't have to become a chaplain or step outside your professional role.
You simply need the skills—and the willingness—to listen differently, be present differently, and care for the whole person.
Start the conversation.
A Little About Me
Outside of my professional work, I treasure life with my husband, our six adult children, and two grandchildren. After our young adult children finished their education in Iowa and began building their own lives, my husband and I moved to the Denver area four years ago to be closer to family.
Home and the outdoors restore me. I love gardening, canning, baking sourdough bread, and walking the trails near our home. Spiritual care is also part of our shared family life—my husband is active in ministry at a local congregation.
These simple things—family, faith, nature, and creating something with my hands—keep me grounded and connected to many of the same sources of meaning and renewal that shape my professional work.
Hear From Practitioners
"Personally, it has allowed for greater awareness of how my own spiritual perspectives shape my health behaviors. This is a powerful piece of the course for both practitioners and in working with patients."
"Thank you so much for everything! It was a pleasure learning with you!"