This week I officially began my food service rotation! I’m at a rehabilitation facility where I’ll complete 5 weeks of food service and 1 week of long-term care. Luckily, I also have a friend with me! Katie, one of my fellow Loyola interns, was placed in the same facility as me so we get to complete our rotations together. In addition, an intern from Dominican University is at our facility so there’s 3 of us interns total. It’s always more fun to have rotations with other interns!
My week looked like this:
Monday:
Katie and I arrived for our first day at the rehab facility! It was raining this morning which made traffic terrible, but luckily it didn’t hold us up for too long. Our preceptor gave us a tour of the building and had us read over the policies and procedures for the kitchen. Let me tell you–there’s a ton of policies and procedures! Getting oriented to the building and all of the policies and procedures took us our entire first day. The other intern has already been at our site for a couple of weeks so she was working on other things while Katie and I read up on all the rules. We did get to eat lunch with her, however, which was a fun time to chat and get to know each other. Having another intern at our site who’s been there longer than us is really nice because she helped us figure out where we were going. :P
After we finished our first day, we had to head to night class! Unlike the last two semesters where we had class from 4:30-7:30pm we now have class from 6-9pm. It means we don’t have to leave our rotations early anymore which is nice because then we don’t have to worry about making up as many hours throughout the week. It also means that we don’t get home until pretty late though, which is less than fun. Class gave us a slightly better idea of what to expect for the next 6 weeks. We also learned a bit about the history of food service which was actually more interesting than you might expect. I am a little confused though about how our lecture was supposed to teach us about food management, but I’m sure we’ll find out in later classes.
Tuesday:
We started off the day by supervising breakfast delivery to the residents. There’s three floors at the rehabilitation center we’re at and each have a dining room. Food is prepared in the kitchen in the basement, and then carts with food are brought up to each dining room where the appropriate food is dished up and served to each resident. Our preceptor wanted the three of us interns to double-check that residents were receiving the appropriate meals based on their meal tickets. Each resident has a meal ticket that specifies if they’re on a special diet (modified for chewing purposes, lower salt, lower sugar, etc.), if they need thickened liquids, any food allergies or intolerances, supplements they need to receive at meals, and their food/beverage preferences (like preferring skim milk, or not liking gravy). The food server on each floor reads the card and portions out the appropriate foods for that resident. Then, the Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) deliver the plate to the respective resident and help them eat, if needed. We checked meal tickets to make sure residents received the proper food. We also answered any questions that came up like if a resident needing thickened liquids could have ice cream (they can’t because ice cream melts to a thin liquid).
After breakfast, Katie and I finished reading through the policies and procedures for the facility. Our preceptor also introduced us to the administration in the building before lunch. For lunch, we checked meal tickets again just like we had for breakfast. It was a little awkward to supervise meal service since we’re so new to the building and don’t fully know the ins and outs of the place yet, but it was a little more comfortable the second time around. It’s just been a little learn by fire since we’re learning what their nectar thick milk cartons look like at the same time as we’re checking to make sure they’re on a resident’s tray. :P
Wednesday:
We continued our tray checking for breakfast–this time we changed up the floors we were on though. The third floor of the building is where memory care is and the residents who need the most assistance. First floor is for residents that are mostly still independent with taking care of themselves, and second floor is kind of the middle-ground between the two. Yesterday, I was on the second floor and today I did meal checking on the third floor. The third floor has a lot more residents with modified texture diets and liquids than the other two floors. We’ll continue to do this tray checking for breakfast and lunch everyday. When we identify issues we report these to our preceptor who manages the foodservice operation. We also immediately step in and correct issues as they happen as well. It’s interesting to see how the floors differ in how they serve meals. The second floor, for example, isn’t as organized and efficient so it takes them a lot longer to serve and they make a few more mistakes. The third floor, however, has a good system down that virtually eliminates all mistakes and makes the serving process go quickly and efficiently. One thing we’ll be doing while we’re here is trying to train the second floor to serve like the third floor is.
Besides tray checking, we also read through the facility’s diet manual and menus. They have a rotating 4-week menu that breaks down the nutritional values for each food served. They also list the alternative options that should be provided depending on a resident’s dietary needs.
Thursday:
After breakfast, we worked in cold production in the kitchen. This gave us an opportunity to really see the kitchen in action. We helped portion out desserts and learned more about the roles each kitchen employee has and how they work together. I’ve worked in a long-term care kitchen before, so I was already familiar with how these kitchens work. It was cool to see a kitchen that has multiple employees working together and the division of labor there. In the kitchen I worked at previously, only one staff member was working at a time.
After lunch, we worked on our in-service project. We’ll be giving a presentation reminding staff about handwashing procedures and infection control. We developed handouts and a pre and post-test. We’ll be working on a PowerPoint presentation for this in-service as well.
Friday:
We checked trays for breakfast and lunch and spent the rest of our time working on our in-service presentation. It’s been really nice to have another person to work on this project with. We’ll probably be presenting our in-service sometime next week.
Weekend:
The wifi went out at my aunt and uncle’s house Friday night and was only working intermittently until Sunday afternoon. I haven’t paid that much attention to how vital internet is to everything I need to do in a day until this happened. 95% of everything I need to utilize for class or my supervised practice is online. Luckily, I purchased a hard copy of one of my textbooks, so I had something to work on. We also haven’t been given very much information from our instructor about what to do for either our class or supervised practice so I didn’t have tons of stuff to work on anyway. It’s a little nerve-wracking that we still don’t have much information since this course is only 6 weeks long… We’re still going to have the same amount of work to do, just in less time. We also don’t have class next Monday because of Memorial Day, so we’re all just waiting on emails to be responded to. :P
Next week, I’ll be continuing my supervised practice at the rehabilitation facility and most likely presenting my in-service. Until then!