Day Five

          Today was my last and final day being at the hospital, and shadowing people. Today I was lucky enough to shadow Morgan. Morgan is a registered dietician who works with premature babies, and makes the formulas and meal plans for these babies.  When I first walked into the nursing area, the babies were so cute and there were so many of them. But when I saw all the cords, tubes and how tiny they were it was hard to see some of these mothers see their newborns go through all this. Some of these babies weighed 1 pound. These babies were struggling to breathe, feed themselves and even come up with energy to do what a normal healthy baby should be doing.  Also, today I was lucky enough to learn the math process on how much food each infant needs and what type of milk is best for them, whether it’s all breast feeding, a helper, a mix of both and so many other ways. After completing the entire math I was able to go into the formula room and actually make the formulas for each infant. It was a lot of fun, and so exciting. Being at the hospital this week makes me want to continue on my plan to major in Nutrition and become a registered Dietician. I hope that I can continue working this summer at least for a couple of hours a week.

Day Four

            At the hospital today, I was able to play the roll of a Dietician. At first I was really nervous to go in a talk to all these patients and ask them these entire question. Today I shadowed Becca who is a Diet Tech. A Diet Tech is someone who goes to each patient and just checks on them and makes certain they aren’t malnourished. Going from patient to patient it was very different. Some of these patients were contagious so we had to wear a gown and gloves. Also, before we enter the room and right when we leave we have to put hand sanitizer on. Going on Beccas routine was a lot of fun. When we went to this older lady, we asked her about her weight and if she thinks she has gained, she kept telling us how she is 79lbs and has never been above that her whole life, but when we saw her charts she has always been 95 and above, she was so cute! After going to see about 30 patients we were finally able to go eat lunch and then go on to an afternoon of meetings. Mrs. Vorwerk came and sat in on the Prehab class. This class was to inform people who were about to have surgery how everything was going to happen. After this class, we were supposed to go to a Chemo class, but there was not enough people there for that meeting so we skipped that and went to the FANS department meeting, which basically was just talking about the hospital overall and gave people an idea on what was still needed to improve. Today was a very fun and interesting day, can’t wait for the infant room tomorrow. 

Day Three

         Today on the job was very interesting. Arriving at the hospital before 7:30 I thought this day would never end. At first when I got there I was very lost. I literally walked three full buildings until I found the right place, by taking the right elevator. When I got down to the office, the Ms. Collins was thrilled to see me, because she had so much to do. She needed to work on this new system for the hospital. This system was to set up an online catering system for the hospital, so that the kitchen and the patients had a better and easier time. This system started off being really complicated. I had input all this data, and I had no clue what was what. By the end of the morning I was cranking out all of this material and information and inputting it into the new system. This afternoon I was able to sit through one of the departments meetings, that was really hard to sit through, because I was not aware of all issues that were going on. After that I was able to go see what it was like when patients complain about the hospital food. The patient was actually really calm about it, being that she just had a baby. She just told us what she would like to see and how much better it would be if they changed certain things. Today was overall an exciting, laid back and long day.

Day Two

            Today was my second day and it was more interacting and very eventful.  The first part of my day started off in the outpatient rehab clinic where I was able to see patients with several different issues and help the person I was shadowing come up with an appropriate meal plan. Each person had to have a different diet and had to be talked to in a different way.  This first part of my day helped me realize that every person has to be treated differently and that not one person was the same.  I was in real shock when I saw some of these patients and how much they struggle each and ever day to do the basic things in life. During our break we went to go see the psychiatric area of the hospital, which was exactly like they showed on the show House.  Walking through this part of the hospital was a huge change in how each patient is treated. These patients were watched more closely, they were not allowed to do the simply things, and they had limited access to freedom. Later in the afternoon, I went to the cancer side of the hospital and helped the cancer patient’s work on their diet. It was hard to come up with an appropriate diet for these patients, because of their cancer and several other factors. Overall today was a busy and eventful day.

May 16th, Day One

        Today was my first day shadowing and it was a bit intimidating. I had no clue what to expect. Every couple of hours the topic and conference would change and more and more people came in to talk.  When I arrived at 8:30 I had no clue what to expect. I knew that the first class would talk about Diabetes, but I had no clue who was coming to the meeting, what was going to be said, and how emotional it could be. At this meeting there was not only doctors, but there were people who were just diagnosed with Diabetes. Each individual was there to learn about the new disease they had just been diagnosed with, and each individual was there to find a way to continue their life, even after this shocking news. The meeting gave each individual and doctor education on this disease. It first talked about how it comes, what caused it, what different types there are and everything you basically need to know. After our short five-minute break, they talked about which food was appropriate and how to manage each persons meal plan, based on how high each individuals sugar level was/is at. After this meeting, I went on to help work in the kitchen with the head supervisor. Not a lot of people realize how much hard work and stress these people have.  Helping the head, was a hard task, because I had no clue where all the supplies were, how to work his machine, and even who I needed to call to get all the supplies for the next meal and/or next day. Overall today was so much fun. I enjoyed going to the meetings, watching how people reacted, and watching how people work each of their jobs.