Week 1: Orientation

Welcome to Iowa! Yikes, that’s cold! I thought I had a pretty good ‘cold tolerance’ growing up in New Hampshire, but clearly the Colorado sun has made me soft! Luckily it warmed up throughout the week, making the walks through campus quite enjoyable.

Arriving for orientation week I was nervous, anxious, maybe a bit apprehensive, but all around excited to get started with my internship.

Monday

I was impressed to see the number of faces at the welcome breakfast. There were 80 interns accepted into the nationwide program; these individuals located and arranged rotations in his or her hometown. Ten interns were place in the Iowa-based program, meaning their rotations were arranged in the Iowa area by internship director.

Four interns were accepted through ISPP (Individualized Supervised Practice Pathway). While I’m not entirely certain how the ISPP process works, it is my understanding that is serves as a ‘second chance’ for unmatched, higher-level, competitive interns.

We were divided into peer groups by geographical location to serve as our virtual colleagues during our rotations. Each ‘community of pratice’ was assigned an instructor to guide and mentor our learning with Iowa State University.

Day one topics included; finding your passion in dietetics, assessing malnutrition, and developing professional communication skills.

Tuesday

We began the morning reviewing the nutrition care process, practicing physical assessments for malnutrition, and reviewing our COPD case study homework. I don’t think I realized during my undergrad program how important it is to physically touch a patient in order to make a full assessment.

After lunch, we made our way to the student union to get out ID cards, and then to the computer lab for an orientation on Blackboard learn. This is the application we will use to complete the online learning.

Wednesday

On Wednesday I broke out my calculator to practice enteral/parenteral calculations (this how you determine how much nutrition support to feed someone). We also reviewed formula selection and modifiers, sampling a variety of standardized products.

We used our buffet lunch to practice “food exchanges.” This tool is used primary by diabetics (hyperglycemia) to count carbohydrates. We were instructed to take a photo of our plate, then use the material provided to calculate nutrients using the “Choose your Foods” model. I’ll confess – it was tricky! I’ll need to practice this method a bit before I can use it with patients.

Thursday + Friday

The final two days of orientation were pretty awesome, in my opinion. Our program arranged a two-day Inman Review Course with Jean Inman herself! She is considered the queen of RD Exam prep materials. She provided us with a 300+ page study guide, then read cover to cover over the course of 12 hours, emphasizing critical test material. I don’t thing I’ve ever highlighted as much in my life!

Jackie, my campus guest apartment-mate, is all smiles during a quick stretch break.