Hi everyone! My name is Sara Hilsman and I am a dietetic intern out of the New Bedford, Massachusetts site. I started this internship back in January and am in the home stretch, expecting to finish by the end of September. These past eight months have honestly flown by and I cannot believe how much I have learned and experienced during this time.
Before starting this internship, I put a lot of thought into what I wanted my concentration to be and decided on weight management. Eight months later, I know I made the right decision. To date, I have spent 182 hours working in various departments within weight management, and I have enjoyed all my time doing so. However, there is one experience I had that meant more to me than the others, an experience where I learned exactly what kind of dietitian I want to be.
I spent two weeks with outpatient dietitians who all shared a unique way of counseling, avoiding the traditional route of enforcing food restrictions. As someone who has always been interested in the impact of diet culture on the type of relationships people form with food, being in an atmosphere that helps patients heal these relationships was incredible, to say in the least. I sat in on various appointments, observing many situations, but the common theme was emphasizing the importance of healthy food choices while building a better relationship with food and promoting positive body image. Patients came to their appointments, some happy and some frustrated, but regardless of how they felt, I watched them as they learned how to improve their health without having to make unrealistic changes and without the measure of their success coming from the number on the scale.
In addition to learning how I want to conduct myself as a professional in the nutrition field, I grew as a person during this internship. Even though I entered this program in January with four other interns, I spent most of the time on my own. Due to our location of residency and the fact that many of my rotations were scheduled far away from the others, I did not cross paths with my fellow interns as often as they did each other. To some this may be an unwanted situation, but it really gave me a chance to grow as a more independent person, forcing me to gain the confidence necessary to handle new situations and to adapt to the difficulties of this internship. I notice a difference in the way I conduct myself and the confidence I gained, especially when conversing with other medical professionals, and I think I can credit some of this new-found confidence to the different journey this internship led me on.
Before starting this internship, I put a lot of thought into what I wanted my concentration to be and decided on weight management. Eight months later, I know I made the right decision. To date, I have spent 182 hours working in various departments within weight management, and I have enjoyed all my time doing so. However, there is one experience I had that meant more to me than the others, an experience where I learned exactly what kind of dietitian I want to be.
I spent two weeks with outpatient dietitians who all shared a unique way of counseling, avoiding the traditional route of enforcing food restrictions. As someone who has always been interested in the impact of diet culture on the type of relationships people form with food, being in an atmosphere that helps patients heal these relationships was incredible, to say in the least. I sat in on various appointments, observing many situations, but the common theme was emphasizing the importance of healthy food choices while building a better relationship with food and promoting positive body image. Patients came to their appointments, some happy and some frustrated, but regardless of how they felt, I watched them as they learned how to improve their health without having to make unrealistic changes and without the measure of their success coming from the number on the scale.
In addition to learning how I want to conduct myself as a professional in the nutrition field, I grew as a person during this internship. Even though I entered this program in January with four other interns, I spent most of the time on my own. Due to our location of residency and the fact that many of my rotations were scheduled far away from the others, I did not cross paths with my fellow interns as often as they did each other. To some this may be an unwanted situation, but it really gave me a chance to grow as a more independent person, forcing me to gain the confidence necessary to handle new situations and to adapt to the difficulties of this internship. I notice a difference in the way I conduct myself and the confidence I gained, especially when conversing with other medical professionals, and I think I can credit some of this new-found confidence to the different journey this internship led me on.
