While I was travelling Europe this summer, I learned how beneficial it is to take time to reflect; both reflecting on myself as a person, what I am grateful for in life and the experiences that I have been able to have in the past 23 years. As a child I LOVED to journal. I have journals upon journals of my hopes, wishes and life goals sitting in a hope chest back home. Reflecting on what you have done/seen/liked/disliked is a great way to grow as a person and as a professional. I have decided to take some time at the end of each of my placements during these next 10 months of internship to reflect on what I have learned, interesting experiences I had and what I did not like.
The first couple weeks of placement were a big learning curve. I learned all about situational assessments, program planning, implementation and evaluation, the hierarchy structure of public health units, yearly program budgets, and many other things but I won’t bore you with them... on to a bit of reflection! 6 interesting things I learned/did within my placement at APH: 1. I learned that public health has SO MANY food models!! For those of you that do not understand why I was so excited when I found the hundreds of food models at APH… these things costs a fortune. I am not exaggerating: http://www.ncescatalog.com/Food-Models_c_14.html 2. I learned that many nurses, and other health professionals do not understand what a dietetic intern is, what a dietetic internship entails, or the full scope of a dietitian. I was introduced by nurses on multiple occasions as "an intern who is working with dietitians to learn what they do so she can be one," or "a registered dietitian in training student," " or I was asked how many more years of college I had left... 3. I was able to attend 3 Canada Prenatal Nutrition Program (CPNP) Clinics This was a very interesting experience for me as it showed that as a public health dietitian, you don’t have to give up one-on-one counselling with clients. The weekly CPNP clinics allow for the dietitians to check in with high-risk mothers to see how their pregnancy is going, provide them with some nutrition education, and a food bag and milk coupons. 4. I was able to assist in educating a kindergarten class on proper hand-washing. Myself and one of the Public Health RDs went into a kindergarten class to show them how to properly wash their hands during my first week at APH. I always forget how adorable/chaotic the little ones are (and how they do not have a filter). We received some very ‘interesting’ answers from the little boys when we asked them where you can get germ from…. And some very interesting reactions when we put Glo Germ (http://www.glogerm.com/) on some of the childrens hands and put it under a black light to see the “germs.” It was a very cool experience to be able to engage with that population. 5. I was interviewed by a local newspaper. The week before Halloween, a local newspaper called Sault This Week called my preceptor asking if she could provide parents with ways that they could make Halloween “healthier.” Instead of doing it herself, she gave me the opportunity. After preparing 3 key messages with the other RDs, 2 hours later I received the call from the reporter. Not only was it a cool experience to be interviewed by a local newspaper on behalf of the health unit, but it was even more cool to see myself in print on the cover of that weeks paper (plus I love getting quoted as “Sara Friedrich, dietetic intern…” made me feel rather professional! 6. Going to a workshop on Media Advocacy and Media Relations in Public Health Last week I had the opportunity to go to a ‘Media Advocacy and Media Relations in Public Health’ day-long workshop held in the Sault. Nutrition communication is extremely important. The average person does not have access to nutrition research, therefore they rely on the news and other communication outlets. Therefore it is important that dietitians have an active voice in the media to provide reliable nutrition information to the public in a way that they can understand. I learned how to engage the media to secure news coverage on a public health issue, how to identify opposition groups and develop a Q&A document to counter their messaging, and some media interview skills and techniques. Hopefully now I can be a more proficient helping professional if the media calls for another interview in the future! Things that I found I struggled with/did not like during my placement:
Overall, my first placement was great. I am definitely going to miss the dietitians, my cute little cubicle and the views from the office!
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Sara FriedrichCanadian Registered Dietitian
Eating healthy isn't a diet, it's a lifestyle Archives
June 2018
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