Today officially marks the start of my rotations! I started my dietetic internship in Food Service Management at an elementary school. The food service company I am working with has a contract with the whole district, which includes 16 different schools from grades K-12. I was lucky to begin in FSM before the school year started. I felt as though I was able to ease into the rotation, rather than just being thrown in mid-stream.
Going into my first day, I was pretty nervous. I wasn't sure what to expect of the managers, schedule, or workload. (Just a side note, I was so worried about being late that I got to my rotation site an hour early. My preceptor had a good laugh about that one. :)) Everyone I worked with today, my preceptor and additional staff members, were really great. My preceptor lead me on a tour of the school, gave me little tips about the co-workers and what to expect on a daily basis, and allowed me to ask as many questions as I needed. She also had tons of resources in her office for me to refer to when I worked on assignments.
I really felt that it was helpful to have all my assignments printed out for quick reference. A lot of times when my preceptor was talking, she would touch on a topic that related to an assignment I had. My director had suggested that I sit down with my preceptor in the first week to review the assignments and get a plan together on how to tackle them. Today, my preceptor and I worked through my assignment list very thoroughly. This really helped us both to understand all the assignments better and bounce ideas off of one another. My preceptor was open to any ideas that I had, which helped me feel more comfortable about what I was doing.
One of the major topics for today was the school lunch program. With all of the new guidelines in place for the school year, my preceptor has to work to update the menus to fit all nutritional requirements. I had reviewed the school lunch program prior to starting; however, it was very helpful to go in depth with my preceptor. I was able to look at menu templates and the programs they used for their schools. I had a little bit of down time (expect that when you begin your FSM rotation), so I was able to get working on my school lunch menu planning assignment. Planning a school lunch menu with all of the new guidelines is a lot more complicated than I thought. It helps to have charts printed out of all the grade group requirements and food component regulations for quick reference.
I was surprised at how many phone calls the office received when I was there today. It seemed as though the phone never stopped ringing with parents asking questions about the school lunch program, new employees asking about trainings, and potential employees calling about positions and job offers. With the students starting next week, a lot of food ordering had to get placed today too. I expect that I will be a lot busier once next week rolls around.
Overall, today was quite a success. Over the next few days, I will be meeting the principals, managers, and employees from other schools in the districts at the meetings and trainings they have scheduled. I am very excited to continue my journey to RD status!
I now leave you with my "laughable moment of the day":
I packed a lunch and some snacks for today which consisted of: carrots, celery, dressing, chickpeas with ranch, 1/2 sandwich with natural peanut butter and nutella, turkey jerky (made in my dehydrator), an apple, raw cashews, and 2 rice cakes. Now, I don't know about you, but besides the sandwich and jerky, I picked some noisy food. Let's set the scene. While the phone does ring a lot, when it doesn't ring, the office is dead silent. So, lunch rolls around and I break out my sandwich and my veggies. Starting with my quiet food first, I have no problems. I then move onto my carrots and celery sticks, which are not very quiet foods. I begin laughing because all I can hear is the obsessive crunch when I bit into my food. Let's face it, there is no quiet way to eat celery and carrots. Anyway, I don't think anyone else notices, or cares that I am crunching and chomping. I, however, begin to crack up at myself, and proceed to choke on my food. This wasn't a heimlich maneuver type of choke; however, I had one of those slight panic moments where you suck in too much food with air and do a cough-cough-large swallow. I think tomorrow I will will be packing cucumbers and grapes :)
Showing posts with label preceptors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label preceptors. Show all posts
Monday, August 19, 2013
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Tips for Finding Dietetic Preceptors
If you decide to go with a distance dietetic internship, you will need to find your own preceptors prior to the application process. Finding preceptors is a very difficult and lengthy process. I would definitely suggest starting early! Not only are there a lot of paperwork and meetings involved; however, you are competing with other possible interns for those positions. Some facilities will only take 1-2 interns per year.
Before you begin to search for facilities and preceptors, review your possible internships. Find out what facilities they will allow you to use. The most important factor is your clinical rotation. Most, if not all, internships will want you to have a inpatient clinical facility set before you even apply. They want this because the inpatient clinical rotation usually the hardest rotation to set. For your food service management rotation, internships will want you at a school location, hospital kitchen, or both. Again, this is important to review before you start your search for preceptors.
It is always best to contact preceptors via phone call first. I found that with email, I was either getting overlooked or spammed. I often didn't know who the head person was to email anyway. Also, emails tend to get pushed by the wayside, as compared to phone calls. Prepare a little blurb of what you want to say on the phone prior to calling. I tend to have a mind blank, so it was helpful to have an outline of my name, why I was calling, how long the rotation was, and a callback number. You will be surprised at what you forget after calling a multiple facilities. I first started off with a list of about 60 hospitals. If you were wondering, I called them all...twice...at least. Calling hospitals for an inpatient clinical rotation was quite difficult. I found many facilities: 1. Had contracts with other schools for interns, 2. Had contracts with companies like Aramark and Sodexo and didn't take other interns, 3. Didn't have enough dietitians on staff for more than 1 intern, and I was too late for that spot, 4. Never called me back from the 3 voicemails I left. That being said, I did find my needed facilities, it just took a lot of patience.
After you get through to a preceptor, they will want to meet you. It is best to be clear, prior to any meeting, what your needs are for the internship. You don't want to drive all the way out to meet a preceptor and find out that they can't have you come for the full rotation time. Also, I found that my potential preceptors liked that I sent the internship forms to them prior to the meeting. This gave them a chance to either fill it out beforehand or review it to ask me questions when I was there. Most of this meeting will consist of paperwork, basic interview questions, and a tour of the facility. Dress to impress! Usually, if a preceptor wants to meet you face-to-face, they already are set on having you use their facility as part of your rotation. They need this time to make sure they understand everything that is needed, the time you will be there, forms you and they will have to fill out, etc. They also want to make sure you are not crazy :)
Don't give up on finding preceptors! If you really get stuck, head to the yellow pages! Also, some internships will give you suggestions on facilities prior interns had used. (This is usually a last resort). Lastly, be persistent but not pushy. You may need to call a facility more than once. Just be sure to give them a week to get back to you before you call again. Preceptors are already very busy, so be respectful of their time.
As always, good luck!
Before you begin to search for facilities and preceptors, review your possible internships. Find out what facilities they will allow you to use. The most important factor is your clinical rotation. Most, if not all, internships will want you to have a inpatient clinical facility set before you even apply. They want this because the inpatient clinical rotation usually the hardest rotation to set. For your food service management rotation, internships will want you at a school location, hospital kitchen, or both. Again, this is important to review before you start your search for preceptors.
It is always best to contact preceptors via phone call first. I found that with email, I was either getting overlooked or spammed. I often didn't know who the head person was to email anyway. Also, emails tend to get pushed by the wayside, as compared to phone calls. Prepare a little blurb of what you want to say on the phone prior to calling. I tend to have a mind blank, so it was helpful to have an outline of my name, why I was calling, how long the rotation was, and a callback number. You will be surprised at what you forget after calling a multiple facilities. I first started off with a list of about 60 hospitals. If you were wondering, I called them all...twice...at least. Calling hospitals for an inpatient clinical rotation was quite difficult. I found many facilities: 1. Had contracts with other schools for interns, 2. Had contracts with companies like Aramark and Sodexo and didn't take other interns, 3. Didn't have enough dietitians on staff for more than 1 intern, and I was too late for that spot, 4. Never called me back from the 3 voicemails I left. That being said, I did find my needed facilities, it just took a lot of patience.
After you get through to a preceptor, they will want to meet you. It is best to be clear, prior to any meeting, what your needs are for the internship. You don't want to drive all the way out to meet a preceptor and find out that they can't have you come for the full rotation time. Also, I found that my potential preceptors liked that I sent the internship forms to them prior to the meeting. This gave them a chance to either fill it out beforehand or review it to ask me questions when I was there. Most of this meeting will consist of paperwork, basic interview questions, and a tour of the facility. Dress to impress! Usually, if a preceptor wants to meet you face-to-face, they already are set on having you use their facility as part of your rotation. They need this time to make sure they understand everything that is needed, the time you will be there, forms you and they will have to fill out, etc. They also want to make sure you are not crazy :)
Don't give up on finding preceptors! If you really get stuck, head to the yellow pages! Also, some internships will give you suggestions on facilities prior interns had used. (This is usually a last resort). Lastly, be persistent but not pushy. You may need to call a facility more than once. Just be sure to give them a week to get back to you before you call again. Preceptors are already very busy, so be respectful of their time.
As always, good luck!
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