First and Second Week of Clinical!

My acute care clinical rotation was at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital (TMH). https://www.tmh.org/AboutUs


The first week was orientation where I read the manuals for dietitian clinical work, I had to learn the computer charting system, I had to become familiar with how to screen for patients, and I had to learn my way around the hospital.

The second week of clinical I worked in the Orthopedic wing of the hospital. I saw mostly geriatric patients. For TMH, any patient over the age of 85 years with a surgery has to be seen by a dietitian. Most of the patients I saw were healthy individuals with a good appetite which resulted in me writing up a short 'no risk' form. If they were not eating well, a supplement was offered, such as, Ensure.

A few of the patients I saw during this week were malnourished. There are many types of malnutrition, including Kwashiorker, Marasmus, other sever protein-calorie malnutrition, moderate malnutrition, mild malnutrition, and other protein-calorie malnutrition. Each malnutrition subgroup has criteria to help define the type of malnutrition.

Starting out, I only saw 3-4 patients a day. It was nice to be able to take my time and write up full assessments and then have the RD's check my notes. The RD's are VERY helpful to me and I cannot thank them enough for all of their help!!!  As an intern, it is important to take any and all advice from the dietitians your are working with.

I was very lucky and was able to shadowed a wound-care nurse for an day. IT WAS AWESOME! I thought I would not like seeing wounds but I learned valuable information. One thing I learned was how to tell if a patient has a pressure ulcer or not. Pressure ulcers have to have a bone under it.

I saw a couple wound-vac changes. (http://www.kci1.com/KCI1/vactherapy) Wound Vac's are really neat! I think it's a great idea and they speed up the healing process by 80%!

I feel some what confident in seeing patients. It's amazing how much I've learned in two weeks at the hospital and I wish I had more hospital experience as an undergraduate, I would have understood a lot more of my clinical class and what was expected from me in terms of writing my notes.