Hello Everyone! My name is Melanie Logue and I am intern from the Allentown campus. I am currently finishing up my food service rotation at the Pines at Whiting, a long- term care facility located in Whiting, NJ. For my clinical rotations, I started in the acute care setting at Raritan Bay Medical Center- Perth Amboy. In the fall I completed my long- term care rotation at this location and ended up liking this setting so much and had formed such a great relationship with the RD here that I decided to complete my staff relief and clinical nutrition management rotations here, as well as food service. Going into the internship, I had never expected to love long-term care despite having much experience with the senior population. So I would like to talk about some of the things that I like about long-term care and this facility!
First off, one of the things I like about long-term care is that you can form lasting relationships with the residents, and they are just that- RESIDENTS instead of patients. This is their home, and you see them just about every day that you come in. On the other hand, I sometimes felt unfulfilled in the acute care setting because despite sometimes forming great bonds with patients, I was likely to never see them again. Also, it is worth mentioning that many of the residents value your company. Another thing that I like about long-term care is that the residents at the location are very eager to learn as well, which at first surprised me. For instance, I am having an RD- Chef demo event in a few weeks, and have received endless suggestions for topics they would like to learn about! Lastly, more specifically to this site, I love the staff and feel blessed to have been working with such knowledgeable, kind, and fun group of people. They have gone out of their way to make sure I am learning and experiencing things that may be helpful to know later on in my career.
Overall, if there is any point that I can get across it is that you should always give things a chance! I never thought I would love long-term care, and now I am in the process of applying to long-term care RD jobs. I have had a great experience and I think this is certainly ending my internship on a wonderful note!
First off, one of the things I like about long-term care is that you can form lasting relationships with the residents, and they are just that- RESIDENTS instead of patients. This is their home, and you see them just about every day that you come in. On the other hand, I sometimes felt unfulfilled in the acute care setting because despite sometimes forming great bonds with patients, I was likely to never see them again. Also, it is worth mentioning that many of the residents value your company. Another thing that I like about long-term care is that the residents at the location are very eager to learn as well, which at first surprised me. For instance, I am having an RD- Chef demo event in a few weeks, and have received endless suggestions for topics they would like to learn about! Lastly, more specifically to this site, I love the staff and feel blessed to have been working with such knowledgeable, kind, and fun group of people. They have gone out of their way to make sure I am learning and experiencing things that may be helpful to know later on in my career.
Overall, if there is any point that I can get across it is that you should always give things a chance! I never thought I would love long-term care, and now I am in the process of applying to long-term care RD jobs. I have had a great experience and I think this is certainly ending my internship on a wonderful note!
