Done with week 3 out of 6! This week, I continued my supervised practice in food service and long-term care. To catch up with my previous experiences in this rotation, check out:
DI: Week 32 – Starting Food Service
DI: Week 33 – Food Service and Long-term Care
Here’s what my week looked like:
Monday:
We spent the first part of the day observing and helping with hot food production in the kitchen! We have to spend a certain amount of days in the kitchen helping with food production so that we understand the process and can be more effective managers. After observing lunch service like we do everyday, we each completed another resident nutrition assessment. My resident has late-stage dementia and is Spanish-speaking only which made our interaction challenging. I had someone with me who was able to translate, however, the resident was non-responsive during our encounter. Completing assessments on long-term care residents with dementia can be very challenging depending on the degree or memory impairment they have. This gentleman was an example of a particularly challenging case. Luckily, he was eating well and his weight was stable so he’s not at nutrition risk that would require further intervention.
After supervised practice we had our weekly night class. We talked about the basics of long-term care, food safety, and older adult nutrition.
Tuesday:
We finished up our nutrition assessments from yesterday, and presented our in-service to the kitchen staff. Our in-service presentation on handwashing and safe food handling went really well. The kitchen staff asked pertinent questions and were able to answer our questions about best practices. After our presentation we had them complete a post-test to check how much they learned. It was encouraging to see how well they all did on their post-tests. We still have to do our in-service for the CNAs that help in the dining rooms, but I’m not sure when we’ll be able to. We have to coordinate with the nursing supervisor and find a time when they can all be available for a brief presentation.
Wednesday:
We supervised breakfast and lunch like we’ve been doing everyday, and completed a quality evaluation of the kitchen. Basically, we had checklists that our site uses to evaluate meal service and quality. We went through these checklists to see which areas our site was doing well in and which needed improvement. Once we found areas that needed fixing we came up with some strategies for improvement and presented our findings to our preceptor. It was interesting to evaluate our site like this, and very different from things we’ve done at previous sites. It felt a little awkward though too to be walking around the kitchen and evaluating it, especially since we’re interns and not actual employees of our site.
Thursday:
In addition to our normal meal supervision tasks, we each completed another nutrition assessment today. The resident I had to complete my assessment on has a lot of behavioral issues so I ended up not talking to him directly. He has been eating well, however, and his weight has been very stable so the situation could’ve been worse. It just feels strange to have situations where I can’t get any information from the resident themselves.
Friday:
We met our preceptor at the Chicago location of the rehab facility we’re at for their quarterly food service meeting. It was interesting to see the differences in this facility versus the one we’re actually interning in. All of the local sites get together quarterly to discuss areas that need improvement, work through challenges, and discuss changes to the menus. For example, they’re trying to incorporate more Mediterranean-style foods into the menus across all locations. Some locations are having an easier transition with this than others. An example of this is one location where the residents had no idea what couscous was and were very hesitant about it versus another location where the residents were familiar and more accepting of it. It was cool to experience this side of food service management and hear about the changes each site wants to make. They also provided breakfast and lunch, which is always appreciated when you’re a cash-strapped dietetic intern. :P
Weekend:
Spencer came to visit for the last time! In two weeks, the next time he’d ordinarily be visiting, I’ll be driving to Minnesota for a wedding instead. And then the following time he’d visit I’ll be back in Minnesota because my internship will be over! It feels surreal that this was his last trip to Illinois to visit me. We went to the Chicago Blues Fest, and explored the city in general. We also went to the Art Institute and had to visit the bean! On Sunday, we went to see the movie “Ocean’s Eight” which did not disappoint! It was a great last weekend together in the city.
Next week will be week 4/6 of food service/long-term care. Until then!