Week 3: This week I was, again, mostly shadowing the dietary aides. I managed to get out of doing all 5 remaining shifts because I went into the hospital last weekend to do one, which turned out to be not that much different than what happens during the week. Plus, my preceptor has been pretty adamant about making sure that I actually have a life outside of the hospital, and has been encouraging me strongly to take a day (or more) off since I've been working lots of overtime and that extra weekend day. So - day off :D! I spent the morning catching up on all the housework I've been neglecting over the last few weeks. I also managed to get in a Friday afternoon off to make up for all that overtime. Long weekend, yay!
Having some time off also gave me the opportunity to do some reflective writing, something that is highly encouraged for interns for a few reasons. One - it helps you to remember things, and to look back later and remember what you learned. This becomes useful when you have to do evaluations (which seems to be constant). Two - it helps you to really understand what you experienced. Though I'm currently in my foodservice rotation, I've learned lots about patient-centred care through my experience following the dietary aides around, and come to understand the importance of excellent communication and understanding between disciplines. Three - it helps to encourage self-directed learning. Similar to reason two, reflective writing is helpful to show what you've learned, but what you have left to learn or expand on as well. I've learned about interprofessional communication from the dietary aide's perspective, but have yet to see the same issues from the other side of the desk and gain a better understanding of how communication lines can be opened, and hopefully impart some of my wisdom from the foodservice perspective on the clinical end :)
Week 4: LAST WEEK!!!!!!!!! My preceptor was away on Thursday and Friday out of town, so I actually had to get almost everything pretty well DONE by Wednesday. Ummmmm, impossible? Yes. Sadly this meant that I couldn't get everything quite done on time for my last day in this rotation, since the last bits of my projects would need my preceptor's approval before they rolled out. But, one of the neat things about having 8 weeks of internal foodservice management split between two preceptors is that there is flexibility. For the next week, I'll be kind of split between my previous preceptor and new one, finishing off the last of my current projects and getting started with something new. The only thing I really have left to do of my current projects is follow up with staff - I've done my job descriptions and changes, and finished my maintenance policy. All I need to do now is present it to the supervisors and staff, get their feedback and make final changes. Presto chango, projects complete!
So, final thoughts on the first internal foodservice management rotation:
- Though I wasn't entirely convinced that I would be learning things by shadowing the dietary aides for the majority of my rotation, I ended up learning tons. I saw the care that aides put into their meal delivery and interaction with patients, and I saw the frustrations that prevent them from doing their job to their greatest potential. I learned that even something as simple as delivering a meal tray can be an opportunity to deliver patient-centred care, and can make a huge difference in the patients' experience in hospital. And, something as seemingly simple as delivering a meal tray provides an opportunity for interdisciplinary communication and teamwork to give patients the best care possible.
- While learning from the aides and the delivery portion of foodservice, I also saw the managerial side. I came to understand management's role in foodservice, from production all the way to dishwashing after service. Similarly to learning from the aides, I learned from managers about the challenges that they face in making changes to improve patient foodservice - things that I never would have thought of as challenges before, but become a huge issue when you understand the impact that a small change would have on the employees, patients, and food itself throughout service.
- I used this understanding to create the new job descriptions for dietary aides and my maintenance policy. Going into the project, I thought "Well duh, just write XYZ and you're done. Problem solved. Why didn't anyone do this before?". But as I got into the project and started asking questions, I found out why it wasn't done before - things were a lot more complicated than I had expected! In writing the job descriptions and maintenance policy, I had to use this new knowledge to create documents that would be fair to all of the nutrition employees - from the basement to the management - and ensure that patients receive the best possible foodservice delivery (i.e. food is delivered on time, a the right temperature, is acceptable for their dietary needs/preferences, and allows aides the time they need to deliver patient-centred care in every delivery they do).
I'm still not convinced that I want to become a foodservice dietitian; I have a business background and understand management pretty well, but I'm interested in being involved in patient care. However, I did find that I could still find a way to be involved in patient care through these projects, despite being in a cubicle. I was pretty surprised about that, and it made me more excited to complete these projects to the best of my ability. I'm intrigued and excited about what will happen in my next management rotation, as I'm going to a hospital that is in a period of transition with their foodservice operations, and I'm sure that I will find lots of opportunities to be involved in improving patient care and satisfaction during the next 4 weeks.
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