Day as an RD (vol. 1)

Good morning! Happy weekend!

As I shared with you earlier this week, I would love to share more about my job. My new position is as the Director of Nutrition Services at a small hospital in southwest Michigan. Being the small facility that we are, I wear many hats and I absolutely love it that way. As much as love patient care, I’ve learned I also love managing people. It has been a great fit for me and just as much as I love hearing about other people’s work, I hope of you enjoy hearing about mine!

On this particular day, I worked out in the morning as I didn’t have any early morning meetings. I typically don’t workout in the mornings (I should change this, however!) and leave for work at 7:30am 🙂 Other than that, this is pretty typical!

8:00am – Leave for work
8:35am – At my office, check email, check voicemail, check in with the cook
9:00am – Calculate nutrition information for the lunch menu in the cafe, research eco-friendly to-go containers for the cafeteria, type up department meeting agenda, make copies for the meeting, reading and responding to emails all the while…and eating breakfast (coffee, an apple, and 2 more graham crackers — I had had one before my morning run)
10:30am – Meet with the Wellness Center Director and a grant-funded RD who we may partner with to combat childhood obesity and create a families healthy cooking + activity program. In the meeting, get a call about a question an RN had about a tube-fed patient on the floor.
12:00pm – Head back to the hospital and to the Special Care Unit to see the patient and RN. Reassess, look at new labs and orders, change tube-feed and  recalculate the formula rate, chart
12:30pm – Lunch in the cafe is busy, check in there to see if anyone needs help. All is good and the kitchen supervisor has everything under control.
12:40pm – Check emails, make flyers for my next cooking class, start typing my proposal to the clinic coordinators and pediatricians for the childhood obesity program
1:30pm – Lunch. I eat with my staff in the cafe. We get free food which is so nice, especially since we have healthy options and lots of them! 🙂
2:00pm – Staff meeting with my 9 employees and the hospital CFO (my boss).
3:00pm – I place a few calls about getting our patient menus translated into Spanish, check voicemail, order more menus to have in patient rooms (laminated), and speak with the Facilities Director about getting a new fryer and how we can rearrange our kitchen equipment to avoid the oven’s electrical panel from overheating and going out (a recurring $1,000 expense to repair)
4:00pm – My out-patient arrives. She is a gestational diabetic due in late November. We meet over in Diabetes Education.
4:45pm – Kitchen supervisor and I talk about the meeting from earlier, I check voicemail, return a call on billing for Medicaid
5:30pm – Head home.

I love the variety in my job most — never a dull moment! What do you love about your job the most?

Be well,