Already 3/4 through my foodservice rotation!!!!!
Week 5
This week I started the second half of my foodservice rotation, moving over to another hospital and a new preceptor. This hospital's focus is on rehabilitation (from musculoskeletal injuries, cardiac rehab, stroke and brain injuries, and others), and their patients tend to stay in hospital for a lot longer than they would in an acute care facility (like where I was before). In most hospitals, patients stay for an average of 4-7 days or so - here, patients may be there for 2-4 months, sometimes longer, sometimes for years. As a result, the foodservice needs for this facility are very different than what I saw in my last rotation!
This time around, my projects don't involve any shadowing (yay!!!), but do involve a lot of work from a cubicle. So, once again, if nothing else, I'm definitely learning that I made the right choice in escaping the business world because working in a cubicle is really, really, not for me! My projects this time around include figuring out the costing of producing some of our salads in-house instead of outsourcing (the rest of the hospital network outsources and gets boxed pre-made salads, but since our patients are here for a very long time, we'd like to give more variety wherever possible), and running a tasting panel of some new puree entrees for our special neuro rehab patients (again, trying to give more variety). I'm also working with another intern on updating the inventory system at the hospital. This facility was recently taken over by the hospital network and, thus, will be taking on the same ordering and inventory systems. Again because the foods served here are different than the other hospitals because its such a different population, the current inventory system just isn't making sense with the system they need to move to. So, its up to us interns to make it work. Somehow. Basically we're trying to match up what is being pulled for the belt line with what is actually needed for the trays. Somehow this wasn't done before, at least not very well. Goodie.
Meanwhile, as I was getting these projects started, I was also finalizing the projects from my last rotation. I had a meeting with the foodservice supervisors to review my recommendations for the dietary aide job descriptions and present my draft re-writes. For the most part it went well, but the supervisors challenged me on a few things (sometimes with valid reasons, sometimes due to a fear of change, sometimes the fear of change was actually a valid reason...). I was able to handle the conversation so that it didn't escalate too far out of control, and we had a productive session in the end :) My preceptor told me later that I handled the challenging people/situations extremely well, and had done a great job overall. So, yay!
Week 6
With a week under my belt, I was able to get pretty far with my projects and actually finish a few things already. I held my tasting panel on Thursday with the puree items - which were surprisingly more tasty than you'd think (and definitely more tasty than they looked...), and am already done the data entry, analysis, and report. I've also gotten the pricing of salads that we're currently buying, the pricing of raw materials, staff hours needed to make them, extra materials and equipment, etc etc etc... -- just have to put the pieces together to figure out which is the better deal for us. I also had a visit from one of the suppliers, who wanted to give me samples of diced cucumber. Um, I know what a diced cucumber is, thank you - but I will take your free vegetables anyway :D The inventory stuff remains a mystery, but I've done what I can for at least one week of our 3-week menu cycle...
Other neat things this week: I attended an education session with a group of dietitians who had recently attended a conference. Apparently when people go to conferences related to practice, they almost always present a conference debriefing to share what they learned with their colleagues. Some of us interns went over (it was off-site) to hear about the diabetes and vascular disease conference, and I'm so glad we did. It was awesome! Maybe it was only super exciting for me because I haven't heard anything about clinical nutrition in months, but it was great :) Some of the sessions focused on counselling skills and psychology, others dealt with new medications and therapies, and others reviewed population health studies and strategies from international presenters. I took lots of notes and asked lots of questions, and I feel like I took a lot out of the session. I'll definitely keep my eyes open for more of these conference debriefing sessions!
Week 7
This week was actually a research week instead of a work week! We're starting to do our literature review and critical analysis for our major research project. So, unless there were meetings to attend, I didn''t actually have to go to the hospital - in fact, I only had to go in once. On research weeks, I can be in my pajamas with tea and still technically be at work :D hooray! But because I'm terribly easily distracted at home, I packed up my stuff and wandered around between the various coffee shops in my neighbourhood instead. Somehow I'm more productive when outside of the house (and well-caffeinated :P). Our research project is basically doing a gigantic literature review to see what the evidence is for dietary recommendations in certain populations/in prevention or treatment of certain conditions. My topic is investigating the evidence for recommending a reduced saturated fat intake for stroke prevention. From what I've found so far, there's lots of evidence surrounding reduced saturated fat intake/greater mono- and polyunsaturated fat intake for cardiovascular disease prevention in general, but not a lot that deals specifically with stroke prevention. The research I have found so far has been pretty interesting so far.
For the next couple of weeks, I'm back to my foodservice rotation and FINISHING IT!!!!!!!!!!! Then, one more research week, and VACAY :D!!!!! Erhmahgerd!!!
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