Hello everyone! My name is Nick Funk, and I am an intern with the Sodexo Allentown campus. I am currently completing my leadership rotation in eating disorders. For this rotation, I am fortunate enough to spend most of my time in an inpatient residential setting at The Renfrew Center in Philadelphia, PA. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and I am happy to be spending it working with patients with eating disorders.
Flexibility has been an essential skill utilized throughout the internship. The ability to be flexible and to allow oneself to be flexible is a skill we teach patients with eating disorders who tend to be very rigid in what they consume. When placed on a meal plan, they become fixated on following the meal plan exactly, but life is not always exact and it’s not possible to always control what happens. It is important to allow flexibility in the meal plan and know that the body is designed to adapt and compensate for daily changes in intake; it’s okay to take unexpected opportunities to enjoy food. This concept can be applied to the internship and to life as well.
I had to be flexible early on in the internship because I had to change concentrations. I was originally doing the MNT concentration, but due to unforeseen circumstances that was not an option anymore. My director, Alison Reyes, proposed the idea of focusing on eating disorders in the leadership concentration. Having an interest in working with this population, I jumped on the opportunity that I hadn’t considered to be an option before. It was not easy to find preceptors; I received many no’s and a couple of opportunities fell through due to more unforeseen circumstances. It was frustrating at times, but I kept looking, networking, and contacting anyone I could. All of these difficulties led me to the best opportunity I could have asked for at The Renfrew Center, where I have been directly working with patients by conducting assessments and follow ups, participating in interdisciplinary team meetings, and teaching classes to help this population in their recovery.
My advice to interns at every stage of the program is to be flexible and be open to any opportunity that comes your way. With many of us being “Type A,” it’s easy to want to plan out how the internship will go, but I encourage you to be open minded in every rotation. Use challenges as new opportunities to gain new experiences in areas you may have not considered before. Keeping a flexible and open mind can allow you to find a new passion in the field of nutrition, or if you’re like me, allow you to truly know if your interest is really your passion. Being flexible led to an amazing opportunity at The Renfrew Center and confirmed to me that working with the eating disorder population is exactly what I am meant to do and I am grateful for this experience.
Flexibility has been an essential skill utilized throughout the internship. The ability to be flexible and to allow oneself to be flexible is a skill we teach patients with eating disorders who tend to be very rigid in what they consume. When placed on a meal plan, they become fixated on following the meal plan exactly, but life is not always exact and it’s not possible to always control what happens. It is important to allow flexibility in the meal plan and know that the body is designed to adapt and compensate for daily changes in intake; it’s okay to take unexpected opportunities to enjoy food. This concept can be applied to the internship and to life as well.
I had to be flexible early on in the internship because I had to change concentrations. I was originally doing the MNT concentration, but due to unforeseen circumstances that was not an option anymore. My director, Alison Reyes, proposed the idea of focusing on eating disorders in the leadership concentration. Having an interest in working with this population, I jumped on the opportunity that I hadn’t considered to be an option before. It was not easy to find preceptors; I received many no’s and a couple of opportunities fell through due to more unforeseen circumstances. It was frustrating at times, but I kept looking, networking, and contacting anyone I could. All of these difficulties led me to the best opportunity I could have asked for at The Renfrew Center, where I have been directly working with patients by conducting assessments and follow ups, participating in interdisciplinary team meetings, and teaching classes to help this population in their recovery.
My advice to interns at every stage of the program is to be flexible and be open to any opportunity that comes your way. With many of us being “Type A,” it’s easy to want to plan out how the internship will go, but I encourage you to be open minded in every rotation. Use challenges as new opportunities to gain new experiences in areas you may have not considered before. Keeping a flexible and open mind can allow you to find a new passion in the field of nutrition, or if you’re like me, allow you to truly know if your interest is really your passion. Being flexible led to an amazing opportunity at The Renfrew Center and confirmed to me that working with the eating disorder population is exactly what I am meant to do and I am grateful for this experience.
