Chronicles of a Dietetic Intern #2 – Pedro Leon, Life Dietetic Intern

Hello, my thirsty readers. My Dietetic Internship is off and running. I have since completed my first rotation and am about to complete my second one. Two down, eight more rotations to go! My first rotation was at St. Joseph’s Hospital and currently I am about to complete my second rotation, here at Life University. One of the reasons why this is such a great internship program is the wide spectrum of exposure to the many different fields that nutrition or dietetics impact.

My Food Service management rotation at St. Joseph’s was a busy and educational experience. I have to admit it was my least anticipated rotation. It’s just not me. My interests are more on the clinical side. Nevertheless, I know that food service, especially a clinical or hospital setting, is very important and plays a large role, not just for patients, but for visiting loved ones and employees, as well. My task was to observe and learn all facets of their food service operation, (production, financial, ordering, menu processing and employee staffing,) and the intricacies of what it takes to manage and produce an average of 900 meals a day for patients, including production food for the hospital cafeteria, food services, the doctors’ office building and a high volume hospital lobby café. The dietetic staff, lead by Shahida Rashid, did a great job answering any questions I had while giving me autonomy to learn and complete my projects. They run a tight and efficient ship.

Out of the many tasks and projects I was assigned to complete, three things stand out:
1)    My daily safety and sanitation report of the food service facilities.
2)    Being given the opportunity to standardize a food sales product sold in the café. I standardized a yogurt parfait recipe, including a complete nutrition analysis, which was implemented and is currently used for their production of that parfait.
3)    An appreciation for the menu processing operation. This entails the juggling of orders taken for all patients for every meal, along with incorporating all the physician’s constantly changing orders.

My current rotation brings me here to the Life campus. The Wellness Center is currently running a great program called Insane Fitness. This year, the dietetic interns are collaborating with the program by providing nutritional assessments and counseling for the all participants in the program who choose to seek it. As part of our participation, we provide weekly nutritional seminars. Seminar topics have consisted of: What I Can Eat to Help Me Focus, What to Eat for Energy and Sports, Sports Drinks vs. Water, Calorie and Protein Needs, What’s the Difference Between Carbohydrates, Fats, and Proteins, and Nutritional Do’s and Don’ts. At the conclusion of each seminar, we provide a brief cooking demonstration tied into the topic discussed that evening. All participants attending the seminar get to taste the food, and receive a copy of the recipe, which includes a nutritional analysis.

In the nutrition assessment sessions, we offer one-on-one personalized nutritional consultation, which lasts anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. We evaluate the client’s anthropometric measurements, nutrition questionnaire and 24-hour dietary recall. We then answer any questions or attempt to fulfill requests the participants may have, while counseling them on how they can achieve their nutritional goals, all while staying in line with the fitness goals set by their trainers.

I want to thank Charles Smith and the Wellness Center gym staff for being great partners in this process. I am finding it to be a great marriage between the Wellness Center and our Dietetic Internship program.

My next two rotations take me to the lands of Corporate Wellness and Long Term Care. I have always had a fascination in both of those areas, since they are the fields in which I am considering specializing as a professional dietitian.

Until next time…

Chronicles of a Dietetic Intern – Pedro Leon, Life Dietetic Intern

Hello to all you thirsty-minded readers, Pedro here. It has been a little bit from my last article, but it feels good to be back. Since I graduated with my B.S. in Dietetics in June, I have been preparing myself to start our rigorous dietetic internship (DI) program. The internship is one of the many great programs offered here at Life. What I would like to accomplish here, is provide a little insight about what the program is about, so I will be chronicling my process throughout the next nine months. In the end, I hope this will give a clear understanding of the program and inspire those who wish to be challenged.

When I say vigorous, I do mean vigorous. DI programs have been in high demand over the last decade with the number of applicants doubling. This directly correlates with an increased demand in the field of Dietetics. What makes it vigorous and competitive is that even though the number of applicants has doubled, the number of available internship openings has not. Needless to say, there have been a lot of unhappy recent dietetic graduates that are not getting a place in  an internship program. This is echoed by a statistic that the American Dietetic Association (ADA) released covering the computer matching process from 1993-2009. It showed a steady decline of placements over the past 10 years and within the past three years, only approximately  50% of applicants have been placed into a DI program. The fun doesn’t stop there. Knowing there are minimal openings, applicants try to separate themselves from the pack. They must volunteer in a community related to health and nutrition, have related work experience, be active in dietetic clubs, present relevant research at conferences, publish in journals or a school paper and lastly, maintain a minimum 3.0 GPA, (the higher the better!)

Our internship program started on September 7^th, but the process started way before that. All applicants had to submit a prioritized list of the DI programs they wished to attend to the computer matching company in the middle of February. Around April 16^th all entries are run through the program and if you get matched to a school in the first round, the school will notify you and you will have 24 hours to accept the placement or your name goes back in the pile. I can say that this day is one of the most nerve racking days. If you are one of the unfortunate many that are not chosen in the first round, there is one more round and that’s about it. If you don’t get chosen at all, you have to wait until next year’s computer matching process and start the process all over again….sounds great huh?! It’s like you’re being drafted into the (fill in your favorite sport.)

All programs vary in the number of interns they accept, as well the type of program they wish to be. Here at Life we have 16 slots filled, narrowed down from over a hundred applicants. Our program spans nine months divided into three week long rotations at various facilities where dietetics makes a huge impact. These areas include: long-term care, corporate wellness, renal, pediatric, sports, clinical, foodservice and community nutrition. Facilities that we visit are that of St. Joseph’s Hospital, Grady Hospital, A.G. Rhodes, Piedmont Hospital, WIC and others. All interns are required to work individually, paired or in small groups when attending the different sites. Responsibilities vary from facility to facility. So by the time we are done with the program, we will have been exposed to the gambit of areas in which dietetics plays a role, pretty amazing.

My first rotation covers foodservice, which I am doing at St. Joseph’s hospital. So far it has been great with zero idle time. Busy, busy, busy. Look out in the next issue for a recap of my experience at St. Joseph’s and the rotation that follows, working with the Wellness Center’s Insane Fitness Program. Email any questions to: running_is_pure@hotmail.com.