Confessions of a Dietetic Intern: November 2013

Welp looks like this is going to be another lengthy update considering I am awful about updating! SO BUSY learning & experiencing. But I do think I fixed the comments so anyone can comment, give it a try & let me know if it is still not working. Anywho.. what have I been doing this past month... wellll first I had a rotation at St. Alexius New Start which is a bariatric surgery center. Cool experience & great preceptors there! For those of you who don't know bariatric surgery is a procedure where they either re-route or remove part of the stomach to make it MUCH small in size (about the size of a golf ball for an example). Obviously this greatly reduces the food these patients are able to eat so they can lose weight. But surgery is only a tool and it really requires huge changes in eating behavior & physical activity to be successful. The RD role for these patients is to make goals with them if they are on medically supervised diets before they are allowed to have surgery, make them aware of changes they will have to make before and after surgery, and then to follow-up with them to make sure they aren't having any complications and to provide advice and support post-surgery to help patients with adherence to lifestyle changes. The best part of this rotation was when I was able to watch 3 surgeries! I was all scrubbed up & right in the OR with the surgical team. I was a little woozy the first few minutes or so but once my senses adapted I was just fine. I saw two roux-en-y procedures; for this one they take part of the small intestine and fuze it with the upper part of the stomach while disconnecting the rest of the stomach. But they do leave it in, it just doesn't receive food anymore. Then I saw a sleeve gastrectomy where they completely cut off most of the stomach, staple what is left, and remove the excess. I got to inspect that removed stomach on a utensil table... cool. The most amazing part for me though was that these surgeons do everything from outside the body so the make a few small incisions on the stomach and place claw-like utensils through to do all of this rerouting & suturing... it is astounding how much skill these surgeons have.

So in between that rotation I attended FNCE (Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo) in Houston TX. Unfortunately I did not run into Walker (Texas Ranger) but I had a good time regardless. FNCE is hosted by the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics for RDs and students to attend a lot of lectures on various nutrition topics. An example of one I went to was about the relationship of physical activity and academic performance. It's cool to attend but as a student you tend to hear and study the current research so nothing seemed to new & innovative as far as lectures go. They also have an expo which is where a TON of vendors have booths displaying products and samples... yes FREE samples. So basically they give you this big tote and you walk around visiting these booths like Kraft and Cliff and they give you free samples of new products they have out. Its like trick-or-treating for RDs, no wonder they have it in October! I got so many interesting snacks... zucchini cookies, a billion soy-joy bars, some kitchen utensils, and I won a cookbook from the American Heart Association. Since I am a student I also got offers to free software for life and educational handouts on a variety of products. I had some sort of stomach virus while I was there so some of it was miserable but I had a fun experience nonetheless. I even got to grab lunch with a friend from undergrad & my undergrad program director. It's always nice to catch up. :)

Ok so the past few weeks I was interning at Lindenwood University Athletic Department. My favorite rotation thus far! I was really nervous for this rotation because even though my passion is sports nutrition it is definitely an area where I lack experience. My preceptor was great though so I got to do a variety of things instead of just individual counseling. I did do that with some wrestlers but I also taught some nutrition-related classes and created a nutrition education session for the rugby team. After lecturing the rugby team we had a Q&A session & I was surprised at how comfortable at was & how well I was able to answer their questions. It gave me a big boost of confidence which is something I have been lacking since beginning my internship. I really valued my two weeks there & learned what professional skills I need to continue to work on and hopefully can improve over my next few rotations.

Also while I was at Lindenwood I created an educational display about nutrition for performance recovery and made trail mix energy bites for the athletes to sample. They were a big hit! Obviously they were highly nutritious providing a great balance of carbohydrate, protein, and antioxidants to restore muscle glycogen and reduce stress on their bodies after training. Now they are packed with calories so they are probably not the best snack for those trying to lose weight but they're great for moms who have kids in sports because they store in the fridge for about two weeks! Below is the recipe but first some pictures. :)