Medi-Clinic Day 1

Today was my first day in the Medi-Clinic. I began my day by sitting in a meeting that discussed Pedia-sure and En-sure and why one should use those supplements. These supplements are supposed to be given people that are not meeting their basic dietary needs through regular eating. The meeting focused mainly on premature babies and elderly patients and why these two groups of people should use these supplements. After the meeting I went with two dieticians that were at the meeting (Anna-Marie and another woman) around different parts of the hospital to check on patients. The first place we went was where the premature babies are, but I had to just peer in because they do not want too many people in there at one time to stop the spread of disease. We also went to the ICU. I talked to them about supplements and TPN feeding (Total Parenteral Nutrition), which is feeding through the veins. These two activities (the meeting and walking around the hospital) were both very quick and did not take up much of the day. I spent the remainder of the day shadowing Anna-Marie, who needed to go to two step-down facilities to check on certain patients. We drove to the first step-down facility and I met one patient who had been in a very bad car accident and had significant brain damage. He was only fifteen years old. We also met with another patient who had diabetes. She was very old and Anna-Marie suspected that she was not following her instructions for how to control her diabetes because her blood glucose levels would go from extremely high to extremely low very quickly. After meeting with that patient, we drove to the second facility. At the second facility we said hello to some patients that Anna-Marie knew but was no longer working with. I also got to see the physical therapy room, which was very nice and had a lot of equipment. We met with one patient at this facility, who was an elderly women who was having trouble with her TPN feeding. The TPN feeding tube had not worked properly and had begun leaking so she decided to stop the TPN feeding and try a liquid thickener called "Easy and Thick," which she seemed to like much more. When we left this facility it was 12:00pm (the time that the day is supposed to conclude), but I decided to stay with Anna-Marie and go to her office for an out patient meeting. I am very glad that I chose to do this because this meeting was mostly in English, so I could follow the majority of it. The client was a young woman who had tried a diet that was very similar to the Atkins Diet (very little carbohydrates and fruit, but a lot of meat and protein). She had lost a lot of weight on this diet, and quickly, but she was complaining of gaining the weight back (also very quickly) and wanted to know how to lose the weight and keep it off. Anna-Marie explained to her the science behind these kinds of diets (prolonged limitation of one's carbohydrate intake jumps his or her body into a starvation state) and that it also hurts one's metabolism, which has to do with her gaining the weight back so quickly after not strictly following the diet. Anna-Marie wrote down her regular food intake, and the woman seemed to be very honest and actually want help. She admitted to eating chips, fast food ("take aways"), and skipping lunch. Anna-Marie then weighed her and said that she would create a diet plan for her. She will be given the diet plan on Thursday, and I will attend this meeting as well. Overall I had a very good day; one of my classes, Nutritional Assessment, which I had this past semester, came in very handy today. This is because I had some background information on the practical use of nutrition and dietetics, as opposed to my knowledge being mostly science based (which is the majority of what we have learned thus far). Tomorrow I look forward to spending more of the day in the hospital!