A New Week, A New Rotation

This was such an exhausting last 2 weeks, sorry it's been so long since I've updated!  I had to do a 10-pg paper and a 20-min presentation last week.  My presentation was called "Hard to Swallow: A Case of Altered Mental Status, Dysphagia-Related Nutrition Support, and Guardianship."  Sounds exciting, yes?  The presentation went well overall.  I'm so glad to be done with it, a huge weight has been lifted.  I was getting 4 hours of sleep...it wasn't good. But its over with. And it is considered one of the most difficult presentations of the semester, so I'm glad to mark that off my list.  Did I mention that my presentation was video taped and I have to watch it and evaluate myself?  NOT EXCITED.

Now I am in my surgery rotation. I'm with the same preceptor, just a different floor. I've only gotten to talk to 1 patient so far, as I only started my rotation today.  The patient was a man that just had part of his pancreas removed and some re-routing of his intestinal tract. After patients have surgery that involves their intestine, it is recommended that they consume a post-surgical soft diet. This is a diet that consists of easy to digest foods such as simple carbs and protein.  High fiber and high fat foods require more effort for your body to digest, so these types of food are avoided initially after surgery (usually ~10-12 days).  We went to talk to the patient to see if he had any questions about this diet restriction, since he was going to be discharged soon and still had a couple of days to go on his post-surgical diet.  He and his wife were so lovely!  He told us to talk to his wife, since she is "the boss."  She only had a few questions, but then we realized her daughter-in-law is an RD, so we ended up talking about that more than her husband's diet!  They were just really great people and being around them really made me miss my family. I wish all patients were so easy going and easy to talk to!

Me and some of the interns decided to go to Oktoberfest here in Boston for a study break 2 weekends ago.  That was pretty exciting, but ridiculously crowded!  It was in Harvard Square.  Here is a picture from that:

Also, I took a couple of pictures while I was at the hospital.  Here are the patches that we where on our left lab coat sleeve, which we are in charge of sewing on by the way.  This is so everyone in the hospital knows we are students, I guess. Note: I didn't realize that the symbol above "Dietitian" said MGH until about 5 days ago.  Oops.

Here is a picture of me in my lab coat!  Justin takes me very seriously when I wear my lab coat, so I'm glad I really do have more authority when I wear it! This picture was taken in our intern "office."  It's very small and is crowded when we are all trying to access our lockers.

Well, that is it for now.  I don't have anything else that is new and exciting going on right now. I have another project due next Tuesday about Pancreatic Insufficiency that I'm actually really pumped about, so I'm going to be starting that soon.

Oh!  I forgot to tell you.  I found out something the other day.  So when you get a Bachelors in Dietetics, to become an RD, you know how you have to do an internship, right?  Well, 10 years ago about 75% of students got into internships that applied. Well, they just released the data and only 50% of the students that applied to internships were matched with an internship. It's so competitive and it's only getting more so.  I am so thankful that I got matched!