Hi everyone! My name is Charlotte Hinahon, and I am a distance intern finishing up my patient services rotation at Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa, California. One of the things I love about the Sodexo internship program is the ability to make it my own experience. I am fortunate to have been working as a diet clerk at the hospital before I started my rotations, and I am able to continue working part-time during the internship, so I'm very familiar with the kitchen staff, the dietitians, and most of the patient services activities. I've also been able to complete some community rotation hours before I started patient services, and I am able to complete more of these hours during my clinical rotations when my schedule allows it. With the flexibility of this internship program, we truly have the ability to create our own internship experience by finding sites in community, long term care, and in our chosen concentration that we have an interest in learning and working.
In my patient services rotation, one of the new things I've learned is how to make changes to the patient menus. I made recommendations for adding more protein and calories to the renal and cardiac diets while staying within the guidelines of the Sodexo Diet Manual. Those changes were made to the menu. I also had a pleasant experience conducting meal rounds because I really enjoy talking to patients and, from a management perspective, I feel it's really important to gather feedback on the food and menu. Almost every patient I spoke with had something nice to say about the food and had compliments for the kitchen staff. It was a great feeling to be able to bring that information back to the kitchen and share it with everyone involved in patient services. Another interesting aspect of patient services was the opportunity to sit in on hospital leadership meetings and go on leadership rounds to other departments of the hospital. Learning about all the different issues going on within the hospital was really fascinating.
For the community hours I've completed so far, I've been able to work with adults at the Napa food pantry, and I am currently working at the Senior Center every other Thursday with the senior meals program. Talking with adults and seniors, who are not patients at a hospital, is a very different experience for me, so there were times I felt out of my element and not very confident.
And speaking of being out of my element, I will be starting clinical rotations next week and I am very nervous. I know I will not have the same confidence that I have in patient services when I start my clinical rotations. However, what I've learned so far from my internship experience is that even though we don't always feel confident in our knowledge of something, we should always be confident in our ability to learn and use our resources. In every experience there's an opportunity to learn something new. It might be something about ourselves—our skills and abilities—or it's something new we learn about a specific thing or topic. Remember that your time is your own! Make it work for you and never stop learning.
In my patient services rotation, one of the new things I've learned is how to make changes to the patient menus. I made recommendations for adding more protein and calories to the renal and cardiac diets while staying within the guidelines of the Sodexo Diet Manual. Those changes were made to the menu. I also had a pleasant experience conducting meal rounds because I really enjoy talking to patients and, from a management perspective, I feel it's really important to gather feedback on the food and menu. Almost every patient I spoke with had something nice to say about the food and had compliments for the kitchen staff. It was a great feeling to be able to bring that information back to the kitchen and share it with everyone involved in patient services. Another interesting aspect of patient services was the opportunity to sit in on hospital leadership meetings and go on leadership rounds to other departments of the hospital. Learning about all the different issues going on within the hospital was really fascinating.
For the community hours I've completed so far, I've been able to work with adults at the Napa food pantry, and I am currently working at the Senior Center every other Thursday with the senior meals program. Talking with adults and seniors, who are not patients at a hospital, is a very different experience for me, so there were times I felt out of my element and not very confident.
And speaking of being out of my element, I will be starting clinical rotations next week and I am very nervous. I know I will not have the same confidence that I have in patient services when I start my clinical rotations. However, what I've learned so far from my internship experience is that even though we don't always feel confident in our knowledge of something, we should always be confident in our ability to learn and use our resources. In every experience there's an opportunity to learn something new. It might be something about ourselves—our skills and abilities—or it's something new we learn about a specific thing or topic. Remember that your time is your own! Make it work for you and never stop learning.
