Internship Recap: Week 8-10

Wheeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Foodservice rotation is DONE :D!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Honestly, it's not that it was really all that bad.  I even learned stuff.  But after 8 straight weeks, I'm ready for a change of scenery.  And, of course, a 2 week vacation :D

Week 8
Coming back after a week of breaking away from foodservice for research, I was ready to get crackin'.  Well.  It seems that I cracked too hard.  I finished all of my projects by Wednesday... and I still had a week and a half to go :/  Oops.  The inventory thing? Done.  The puree taste panel?  Finished that last week.  Salad project?  Completed it by Friday, just had to finish up the final write up and hand 'er over early in week 9.  I also did a bunch of presentations to explain the results of a recent patient satisfaction survey to anyone involved in foodservice (dietary aides, supervisors, belt line assembly staff) at all of our sites.  There are 6 of them.  Some of them had me traveling over an hour away.  But whatever - also done :)
With nothing much to do but sit on my hands, I asked my preceptor for something - anything - to keep me from going crazy.  After looking at the competencies that I hadn't yet had much practice in, sadly, there still wasn't much that she could give me that would give me those experiences.  But she did give me some work to do that should take me at least a couple of days.  It's something similar to the cart maintenance policy that I did in my last half of the foodservice rotation, so I guess I'll be a rockstar at developing occupational health and safety policies by the end of this... This time, I developed an occupational health and safety audit checklist, so that supervisors can inspect each area of the kitchen and prep area for hazards, and address things before they become big problems and pose a safety risk for employees.  The hospital does a similar audit annually, but this way they can do it within the foodservice department on a more regular basis to prevent these hazards in the first place.
Best part of the week - we had another education session on Friday with an RD who works in the diabetes clinic, who taught us about nutrition treatment and medication therapies for type 2 diabetes.  Most of this is stuff that we learned in university, but she got a bit deeper into how to counsel a patient in an outpatient setting and gave us case studies to work through.  It was awesome :D  I was already pretty interested in working in diabetes education (not sure if it would be in an outpatient clinic, or as part of another role like Family Health Team, renal/endocrine clinics, etc), but this just solidified how much I enjoy working in this area.  It got me all excited to go to my diabetes placement - until I remembered that I won't actually be there until March.  :(

Week 9
LAST WEEEEEEKKKKK!!!!!  All projects were done and handed in to my preceptor by Tuesday morning except for the health and safety checklist, which was finished on Thursday.    Friday morning, I handed everything in, said one last goodbye, and was OUTTA THERE!
Similar to last week, we had another diabetes education session on Friday, and also participated in a lunch and learn earlier in the week with a physician who presented her findings from a recent study about the prevalence of malnutrition in Canadian hospitals.  *squee* Clinical just makes me so happy :)

Week 10
Currently starting it, and it is yet another research week.  But, it turned out that this research week came at an extremely convenient time for me...  See, I'm supposed to be researching about stroke and hypercholesterolemia and all that, but it was replaced with researching about something else.....

He proposed!

All of a sudden, stroke research seems much less interesting than wedding research :P  I spent the first day of research week calling several venues, getting quotes, scheduling site visits, etc., because in our city places tend to book 1-1.5 years in advance, so you almost have to start contacting venues the minute the ring goes on.  Especially when you're expecting a group as large as ours (he has a big family :( lol).  Now that I've booked a few site visits and gotten some ideas, I can jump into my actual research project for the rest of the week!


Chances are that I won't get back to the blog over the next few weeks due to holidays, general busyness and, well, wedding planning (WHAAAT?!?!?!).  So - happy holidays and happy new year to you all!  I'll be back in January with a brand spanking new rotation (!!!!!!!!!!!) and maybe even some exciting wedding updates!