Hello and happy National Nutrition Month! My name is Lilly Grady and I am a Sodexo dietetic intern in the distance program. I reside on the RI/MA line in Pawtucket, RI but have found myself making connections and driving all around MA; From Norwood, MA where I am finishing up my clinical rotation at Norwood Hospital and did my LTC rotation, to community events in Easton, MA at Stonehill College and up in Leominster, MA at UMass Memorial Hospital, and soon next to my food service management site in Boston, MA at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Through the long hours of travelling to different sites and immeasurable miles on my car over the past six months, I have been able to meet and spend time with people from all walks of life. Making relationships with new people every day is one of my favorite things about the internship. Knowing how to effectively communicate with audiences of various backgrounds, interests, income levels, and disease states is an invaluable skill that cannot be taught in a classroom.
In the clinical setting, I have gained confidence in my ability to go from patient to patient and assess their nutritional needs and appropriateness for education. It is one thing to understand the science behind why a patient needs to follow a specific diet, but to be able to explain it in layman’s terms and suggest ways to make it accessible and realistic is another thing. There are some days where I just can’t make a connection with a patient and all they want to do is go home, and that’s okay. You can’t reach everyone, just know that you did your best. Then there are patients who express a strong desire to change their nutrition habits and improve their quality of life, but have an extensive medical history and are not going to be “fixed” after a 10-minute diet education. Being conscious of your limitations and the setting you are in is necessary to be a successful dietitian.
In the community setting, I am continuing to practice different presentation methods to make the topic more relatable to each group I speak to. I made a presentation on MyPlate to give to high schoolers in Leominster, but quickly found that even though the two classes I spoke to were the same age, the difference in interest level between them was considerable. The first class consisted of 6 quiet students, so what was intended to be an interactive presentation quickly became more of a lecture where I did most of the talking. This experience taught me that no presentation, no matter how many times you practice it, is going to go perfectly. There was a lot of awkward silence when I asked questions so I will admit that I was super nervous that the second presentation would be just as unsuccessful. The second class though was just the opposite and I could feel their energy and desire to learn feed my passion for nutrition education.
Through the long hours of travelling to different sites and immeasurable miles on my car over the past six months, I have been able to meet and spend time with people from all walks of life. Making relationships with new people every day is one of my favorite things about the internship. Knowing how to effectively communicate with audiences of various backgrounds, interests, income levels, and disease states is an invaluable skill that cannot be taught in a classroom.
In the clinical setting, I have gained confidence in my ability to go from patient to patient and assess their nutritional needs and appropriateness for education. It is one thing to understand the science behind why a patient needs to follow a specific diet, but to be able to explain it in layman’s terms and suggest ways to make it accessible and realistic is another thing. There are some days where I just can’t make a connection with a patient and all they want to do is go home, and that’s okay. You can’t reach everyone, just know that you did your best. Then there are patients who express a strong desire to change their nutrition habits and improve their quality of life, but have an extensive medical history and are not going to be “fixed” after a 10-minute diet education. Being conscious of your limitations and the setting you are in is necessary to be a successful dietitian.
In the community setting, I am continuing to practice different presentation methods to make the topic more relatable to each group I speak to. I made a presentation on MyPlate to give to high schoolers in Leominster, but quickly found that even though the two classes I spoke to were the same age, the difference in interest level between them was considerable. The first class consisted of 6 quiet students, so what was intended to be an interactive presentation quickly became more of a lecture where I did most of the talking. This experience taught me that no presentation, no matter how many times you practice it, is going to go perfectly. There was a lot of awkward silence when I asked questions so I will admit that I was super nervous that the second presentation would be just as unsuccessful. The second class though was just the opposite and I could feel their energy and desire to learn feed my passion for nutrition education.
