MY MNT 1 ROTATION IS OVER AND I CAN ENJOY CHRISTMAS!

Hello everyone,

First off, SORRY I HAVEN'T POSTED IN 8 WEEKS?!? I thought my first two rotations took up most of my time...boy was I wrong. Anyone who has done a dietetic internship or is currently in their clinical rotation will agree with me when I say that this blog was my last priority. Imagine going to a hospital 40 hours a week but then on top that having loads upon loads of work including  two case studies....all while not getting paid (!!) experience is worth a lot more in my book, or that's what I keep telling myself.

In all honesty, though, this rotation definitely taught me the most and gave me a great idea of what it will be like as a clinical dietitian. It's really intimidating at first, and if your rotation is like mine you're working with five different dietitians who all do something a little bit different. It can be confusing! I encourage you to stick with it, though, because each dietitian has something to contribute and you will learn more than you could ever imagine.

By the second week I was being sent off to work on patients by myself...talk about being nervous. But like any job, practice makes perfect. I'm lucky in that my internship program is MNT-based, so I still have an entire semester of my clinical rotation left to learn even more. It's hard to believe that I'm halfway done already!

Didn't I just move to Louisville yesterday?
(Speaking of Louisville, UK plays UofL on Saturday and I am more excited for that than I am for Christmas. You can bet I'll be reading KSR all break.)

Anyway, hopefully now that I know what to expect next semester I can make time to update y'all on this internship blog of mine. I promise I'll try. New Years Resolution, am I right?!

Chat later. Have a Merry Christmas! xo

FNCE 2014

What's up everyone?! So my food service rotation is finally over and let me say, I am happy that it is. Don't get me wrong, I think it's important for every person interested in dietetics to get experience in food service management. In my case, it just reinforced how happy I am to be in a program with a concentration in Medical Nutrition Therapy. Just because I want to have a clinical dietetic profession, doesn't mean you will not LOVE your food service rotation during your internship. I had such a great time, met some wonderful people, and really got a feel for all the hard work that goes into running a food service establishment (FYI: a lot of work goes into it).

Anyway.... who went to FNCE this year?! We did and it was great.

For those of you unfamiliar with FNCE it is the Food and Nutrition Conference Expo where thousands of RD's/student/healthcare professionals gather and learn about all things nutrition-related. This year it was in "Hotlanta" as our internship director would call it but the rest of the world refers to it as Atlanta, Georgia. It was amazing. We each attended speaker sessions on current topics in the dietetics field. Hopefully you all get a chance to attend one year because there are SO many pros and not enough cons to convince you to go. I'll keep this short because you honestly need to find out for yourself, but here are a few reasons to go to FNCE:

• Education: this sounds boring but it's not like a basic college science class. It's about up and coming topics being spoken about by extremely incredible speakers!
• Free Stuff: the expo is full of companies and health food brands (some of which I had never heard of) and they all give you free samples and take-home products of theirs. I had a bag full. Here is just some of what I got...

• Great Location: FNCE is always held in a fun and interesting city. Next year it's in Nashville so obviously I will be there. 
• Networking: If you are going to FNCE bring your resume and even business cards.My roommates and I did not due to lack of time and I wish we did. There are TONS of recruiters and companies looking to meet young and fresh dietitians in the field. FNCE is the perfect place for that.

For more information on FNCE 2015 visit their here. That's all I have to say about that. Keep an eye out for my next post on my first week or two of my clinical rotation! Have a great day everyone! xo

The Best Fall Trail Mix Ever!

Wow, two posts in one week, who am I? I need to calm down. Anyway as you know it is finally Fall. Autumn, if you wish. I love this time of year for so many reasons, most of which are your typical girly responses: pumpkin-flavored everything, big sweaters, pretty leaves changing colors, riding boots...yeah yeah yeah I'm obsessed with all that. BUT I especially love the types of foods that come along with this season. And as a dietetic intern I feel like it is totally appropriate to discuss my favorite fall snack.

Yup. It's the best. I love it because you can mix together anything you want and call it trail mix.

Pretzels, crackers, and peanuts? Salty trail mix.

Skittles, Sour Patch Kids, and Nerds? Candy trail mix. Wait what?

Donuts, cupcakes, and chocolate chip cookies? Diabetes trail mix. Why not? I can tell you a million reasons why not but I'll spare you.

Okay maybe you can't mix together anything but you get my point. Almost anything. At the hospital it is the first full week of October which means that the chefs are getting pretty creative with incorporating their featured food of the month--pumpkin (duh)--into a ton of recipes. Yesterday they came up with this killer trail mix that I just had to share.

Ingredients:
- Cheerios*
- Dried cranberries*
- Raisins*
- Pumpkin Seeds*
- Shredded coconut*
- Chopped walnuts*
- Chopped almonds*
- Drizzle of honey
- Sprinkle of cinnamon
- Chocolate chips*

*Amounts aren't listed because some people like more of one thing than the other, etc. I'd say a safe bet is half a cup of each. Equality for all ingredients!

What you do:
- Mix the Cheerios, dried cranberries and raisins in a big bowl.
- Toasted the pumpkin seeds, coconut, walnuts, and almonds in the oven for a few minutes.
- When they are all warm and toasty mix them into that big bowl with the cheerios, etc.
- While everything is STILL WARM, add the honey and cinnamon. You don't need a lot just a drizzle of honey and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Mix it all up and wait for it to cool.
- Once everything is cool add the chocolate chips. Be extra sure it is cool or you'll make a big chocolate-y mess.

That's it. Try it. It's amazing. Bye xo

Welcome to your Food Service Management rotation, where you get home and immediately want to go to bed!

If there's anything that starting this blog has taught me it's that I'm a terrible blogger. I know I said I would post weekly but clearly that hasn't happened and I'm sorry that is will be a wordy post. This rotation literally takes every ounce of energy from you that by the time you're done for the day you just want to do absolutely nothing but binge-watch Netflix until you fall asleep. Here are some things you can expect during this rotation as a dietetic intern:

1. People calling out: If you don't have at least one person calling out right before their shift starts then consider it a good day. Don't get me wrong, many of these employees are hard workers but with so many staff members working at once there's always something going on that causes the kitchen to be short-staffed. And if management doesn't have any back-ups to come in guess who's doing that job for the day? You guessed it--interns. It's not so bad, though, because I think it's important to understand all positions in the workplace.
2. Last minute menu changes resulting in chaos: It happens. Something is supposed to be the entree on the menu but *oh snap* someone forgot to add the main ingredient to the purchase order or the sous chef dropped the pan on the floor right before it was about to be served. Whatever the case, things are always changing in a food service setting so being quick on your feet and having good communication between staff is important.
3. Unrealistic complaints by patients: While hospital food does have a reputation for being sub-par (not true BTW), you still get complaints that make no sense at all. For example, we had someone say they didn't like their food when they were labeled NPO (no food by mouth) that day and never even had anything brought to them. That being said, however, you should always take patients comments into consideration, just use your head. If a patient is saying they never got their food but you see on the tray log that it was delivered, you should check on it before sending them another tray. Maybe they were sleeping when it was delivered and the nurses were holding it for them or maybe they have family members in and are trying to get a free meal out of it (both of these have happened with us). 
4. Hair nets: The amount of hair nets I find when doing laundry is insane. You use them every time you go in the kitchen and when you're out of the kitchen we tend to put them in our pockets instead of throwing them out so we don't have to get a new one every time we go to the kitchen again. The problem is that you forget that you have one in your pocket so you get a new one and by the end of the day you have three in your pocket that you don't remember to take out and then you find them all on laundry day.Also I would like to point out that there is no way to look cute in a hair net. I hate hair nets. 
5. Being tired all the time: Seriously all the time. Your days may be 8 hours but if we're being realistic they'll be closer to 10. Seems manageable until you realize you will spend 75% if not more of those hours on your feet that day. Oh you wanted to go for a run when you got home? Have fun trying to put your running shoes on your swollen feet. Work out in the morning if you can. If you're not one of those people who can wake up early enough to sweat it out then take a short (or long) nap at the end of your workday before hitting the gym to avoid falling asleep mid-bicep curl. Moral of the story: get as much sleep as possible because you will need it.
6. Gossip: This is a big one. I'm sure this happens in any workplace but for some reason I notice it a lot more here than anywhere else. It's virtually harmless but everyone talks about everything in the kitchen. As an intern if an employee wants to gossip to you about who-knows-what I advise you to just listen, absorb the information, but do not contribute at all. You are only there for X number of weeks and you have so much work to do that you don't have time for that. Also it's unprofessional and no one wants to be known as that intern but you already know that. Just save anything you have to say for your friends/family/whoever you vent to at the end of the day!
7. Awesome stories: While gossiping is not appropriate, getting to know the employees definitely is! In our kitchen we have people from all over the world. Learning about where they came from and what their home life is like really gives you perspective on other cultures. You'll always find diversity when working in food service.

So these are just some things you can expect to encounter during your food service rotation BESIDES the actual course work you will be doing. Every internship is different so the curriculum will vary, but you can expect a lot of temperature taking, food prep, quality control monitoring, and food safety inspections. I know with our internship we have a lot of assignments to go along with each task that we do. Hence why I have not had time to blog as often as I would like. I think I'll start setting a weekly reminder on my phone. That's what Siri is for, right?

That's all for now. See y'all in a week! xo

My Current Obsession (& My 1st Week of Food Service Management)

FIRST THINGS FIRST: With a week of my food service management rotation under my belt I have tons that I want to talk about. First and foremost this is a blog about my internship experience so here is last week's recap:

• On the first day I met with my preceptor and got situated. Side-note: my ID badge picture is totally hideous and it's embarrassing. I spent the rest of the day learning the ins and outs of Food and Nutrition Services. 
• Our hospital has two forms of dining services: Dining on Call and Catering to You.
• Dining on Call involves the patient calling the diet office and making an order based on the foods they are allowed to eat (think: room service).
• Catering to You involves the set breakfast, lunch, and dinner times where food is brought up, an oral menu is read to the patient, and their order is taken by the catering associate.
• I learned a lot about the managerial duties and performed a few of them myself like tray accuracy, tray assembly speed, and I did a test tray. I must say I was very impressed with how well the staff did.
• Also, the food in the hospital cafeteria is seriously so good. Another side-note: interns get free lunch during this rotation because we are working with the food service contractor so that makes me happy.

There are numerous areas of food service to cover during the internship so I am still learning about everything that goes on. This week I am doing a lot more hands-on tasks so the next post will include more stories! 

Next topic... MY CURRENT OBSESSION

So if you have never heard of Lucky's Market...you need to hurry up and go because it is the absolute best grocery store in the history of grocery stores (imagine Trader Joe's mixed with Whole Foods mixed with Aldi's prices). I will probably do a post completely dedicated to how awesome they are but that's for another day. Anyway, while I was venturing around getting my weekly produce I stopped in their beauty section. My skin has been looking a bit dull lately so I decided to try a natural product. After looking through several types I chose these two by Andalou and let me just say they are AMAZING. Both the cleanser and the mask use fruit stem cells to brighten the skin tone naturally. I started with the lemon cleanser which is refreshing and gentle. My face felt so good and full of energy after. This is a morning and night, ever day cleanser. Next I used the pumpkin honey mask. It seriously felt like I was putting the Autumn season on my face if that were ever possible. My skin was smoother, brighter, and softer afterwards. This is a powerful mask so it is only recommended 1-3 times a week. So basically if you are looking for a new face regimen try this. It's awesome. 

That's all for now. I will post more this weekend!

Have a great night, everyone! xo

153 hours later...

What a crazy couple weeks it has been! I am happy to say that I have completed my community rotation. I'm a third of the way there...except not really at all because community was only 4 weeks, food service is 6 weeks, and clinical is 22 weeks....so in reality I'm not even close.

The last two weeks of community were great. I spent most of my time at the Healthy Lifestyles Center at Saint Mary Elizabeth Hospital which is a cardiac and pulmonary rehab facility. During my time there I did cooking demos and educational sessions on weight loss motivation. The recipe I made for my cooking demo was a family recipe called Carolina Caviar (recipe below). It was a huge hit. I did the demo on a Friday and the following week I had so many patients come up to me and tell me they made it over the weekend. What a great feeling! I also had a patient who I followed throughout my rotation and counseled her three times a week. This was a great opportunity to practice counseling skills using Motivational Interviewing--a fairly new technique within the last five years. If you are unfamiliar with motivational interviewing it is basically where you get the client to set their own goals rather than telling them what they need to do (but it's much more than this, that's just literally the most basic definition I can give you). My patient that I counseled was so successful with her weight loss and I only met with her for two weeks. She lost 13 pounds! It was very rewarding to know that she did that with my help. At the end of community we have to submit this huge portfolio with everything that we've done and that took so long the last week but it felt SO AMAZING to finally press submit.

Anyway, today I started my food service rotation. I am eager to start but a little nervous since community was so relaxed and this will be very fast-paced. The days are also going to be a lot longer so I need to prepare for that. For example, instead of your normal 9-5 I am going in tomorrow at 6am and leaving at 4pm so I need to get some sleep. I'll update this more often this rotation now that I'm used to the swing of things, I promise! Also, expect a lifestyle post here in a few days :)

Have a great night everyone! xo

My First Two Weeks!

Whoever said time flies was not kidding! I am already in the middle of my second week in my community rotation and it is incredible. But first, let's rewind a bit to what you all missed.

Orientation was awesome. The drive to campus was boring as ever (I hate the Western Kentucky parkway) but the three other Louisville interns and I drove up together so it made it more enjoyable. Speaking of those interns, we are all so grateful to be in it together. And living with two of them is awesome--we were lucky to get paired with each other! So anyway, the three days of orientation was very helpful. Our directors gave us our three-(yes, three)-inch binders which they referred to as our "best friend" that literally had everything we needed to do and how to accomplish it during this 10-month internship. It was extremely organized and just awesome to have. We all left on the last day of orientation pretty comfortable with the competencies we have to complete and what to expect during the internship.

Now to the good stuff...THE EXPERIENCE.
Remember: Every internship is different. So some rotations may be longer than others and approached in different orders. My community rotation is 4 weeks, followed by food service rotation for 6 weeks, and then 22 weeks clinical rotation.

The first week (last week) was awesome. The first day we met with our preceptor and she told us about what we would be doing for the next month and then handed us our jam-packed schedules. Some days we were with another intern and sometimes we were by ourselves. And she has us going all over Louisville which is amazing. We get to go to diabetes education classes, cardiac rehabilitation centers, bariatric surgery centers, wellness programs, and we even did screenings for cholesterol, blood pressure, etc. at the Kentucky State fair this week and last.

What I like most about this whole experience so far is the variety that we are getting. Our preceptor and internship director communicated really well with each other about what was expected before the internship even started so I think that really ensured that we would get an array of experience.

The best thing I did was actually today in bariatrics! I had the opportunity to watch three LAP-band surgeries. If you aren't familiar with that, it's a weight loss surgery that involves placing an adjustable band around the top of the stomach that helps with restriction when eating by making the person feel fuller faster. It is extremely successful when the patient follows the rules. The main reason patients choose this weight loss surgery over gastric bypass or the sleeve is because it is statistically safer and reversible if ever needed (although usually not likely).

So that's my experience so far. The workload has not been too bad. All of the activities we have to do for certain competencies are projects that you do a little of each week and then it all comes together so the amount of work per week is very manageable. My roommates and I are enjoying this as much as we can because we know as soon as our community rotation is over it'll only get more intense!

I'll update more next week! Have a great rest of the week everyone :)