First of all, thanks for the bday wishes! I now have high expectations that 26 will be even more fantastic than 25…
At the farmers’ market this past weekend, there was definitely a musician with a parrot roost attached to his bicycle. And said parrot danced to the music.
There were so many plants and vegetables seeds that I got kind of sad because I really have no space to grow anything…and then I remembered that I kill plants anyway.
We ate black bean burgers and drank local beer at the Upland Brewing Company. I’ve had a lot of veggie burgers, but the best ever award goes to the Northstar Cafe in Columbus, OH.
It has rained pretty much everysingleday this month, which is awesome for white noise but not so awesome for being productive. It makes me want to drink coffee and sleep, which really don’t go together?
You might be curious about what a clinical dietitian does all day…we usually don’t set foot in a kitchen, which is a shocker to some.
A lot of my nutrition interventions involve nutrition support, which includes enteral (tube feedings into the stomach or small intestine) or parenteral nutrition (nutrition into the veins).
Examples of situations where enteral nutrition would be used include: a patient who can’t eat enough by mouth to meet his or her caloric needs (failure to thrive, prematurity, cardiopulmonary disorders, etc.), has problems digesting regular food, or has a neuromuscular disorder that prevents safe swallowing.
First, we calculate estimated calorie, protein, and fluid needs. We then choose a formula based on the patient’s age and medical condition. Next, we determine if we will feed continuously or do several bolus feeds over the course of the day. We figure out the rate per hour for the tube feeding and feeding volume.
Once these things have been decided, we monitor our patients closely to ensure they tolerate the feeds. We start off at a slower rate and gradually increase to full feeds to avoid gastrointestinal upset. Things get trickier when we have to add electrolyte supplements (sodium bicarbonate, sodium chloride, etc) to the formula and adjust based on laboratory results. Being a dietitian actually involves a lot of math!
So that’s a little slice of my day…different than what you visualized a dietitian doing in the hospital setting? Are there things about your job that people find surprising?
