Our media resource and education session focused on the topic of Reflective Approaches To addressing Client Questions.This learning experience involved working in a group to conduct a needs assessment and use this information to draft and education plan for our group education session.
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Group Education Assignment
The topic of our group presentation was counselling techniques in regards to supplements, specifically focusing on how to approach counselling clients in regards to supplements. As is often the case with group work, this process was a great learning experience that presented both ups and downs.
Our first challenge was choosing a topic and narrowing it down to one that could be covered in a short forty minute presentation. To do this we started by looking at what is current in the field of nutrition that we could see facing in future practice. After much deliberation, we decided to focus on how to council people in regards to vitamins and supplements. Once we had a broad topic we then had the challenge of narrowing it down. After further brain storming we decided to focus on two extremes of potential clients we might have, one being someone who does not want to take supplements, and someone who does, and how to incorporate the method of Rolling with Resistance to successfully council them. We also decided to touch on the topic of when it is appropriate to recommend supplements, and when we should encourage a dietary approach. Overall this process gave us more experience in developing topics that are within the scope of the given presentation.
Our second stumbling block came with the logistics of trying to organize a time and place that would work for all six group members to meet. Although this was already a challenging task given the short time frame to complete the assignment, the fact that our group members live quite far apart was also a challenge. We were however to resolve this difficulty in the end through negotiation and the use of google docs. This is a good lesson as in the future we will be working in diverse teams of healthcare professionals that have different schedules that may be hard to coordinate. Having experience in being flexible and creative in planning I believe will be beneficial in such circumstances
The final challenge we faced was all agreeing on exactly what we wanted to include in the presentation. Working in a group of six people, it is inevitable that people are going to have different ideas on what to include in the presentation. Although we had a few difficulties agreeing on what to include, in the end we came to a compromise, that everyone felt comfortable with. This is another scenario that will be seen in future practice. Whenever groups of people are working together such as in an inter-professional healthcare team, there are going to be different opinions and having the experience of negotiating through such situations will be very valuable.
Overall planning this class presentation was a great learning experience that enabled us to further develop a number of different skills that we can utilize in our future careers as Dietitian’s.
FNH 381 Final Reflective Assignment
Here is my final Self Reflection assignment for FNH 381! It has been a great three weeks and I look forward to continuing on with this content in FNH 481!
FNH 381 Reflective Self Evaluation Assignment 2015 March 24 15 LOCKED 2
Consumer Article Writing Experience
For this assignment we were tasked with writing a five hundred word consumer based article about the health benefits of fish oil. Writing the article was much more of a challenge than I originally expected. When my partner and I were first looking over the assignment, we thought it would be relatively simple to write a five hundred-word document. Although this was our preconception about the assignment, it was definitely not the case, as we faced a number of challenges throughout the writing process.
Our first challenge arose when it came to narrowing down the scope of our topic. Because our topic choices were quite broad including carbohydrates and the Glycemic Index, health benefits of popular foods, or benefits of fish oil. Once we chose that we were going to focus our article on the health benefits of fish oil, we then had the task of determining what aspect of the topic we were going to focus on given the short length of the article. Taking such a broad topic as fish oil and narrowing it down to a topic that could be covered well in five hundred words, and would be relevant to people today was quite a challenge. To overcome this problem, we decided to look and see what types of consumer articles on our topic are already out there to ensure that ours did not overlap. Upon doing some research, we found that there was less information out there on fish oil, and decided to make this the focus of our article.
Our second challenge arose when we had decided on a topic and were looking for reliable sources of information. A problem I have come across in both this assignment and others is knowing whether or not the information being sourced is reliable. To avoid this problem, we decided to only use peer reviewed articles sourced through .
Another problem we faced was taking scientific articles, which are often loaded with jargon, and technical terms that are not always known by the consumer. To write this article at a grade six reading level, we tried to reflect back on consumer articles we have read about topics that are outside of out field of expertise, and tried to model ours on such articles. Once we got into this mindset, it became much easier to take the complex language from the articles, and translate it into an article that would relay the information to the consumer.
The last difficulty we faced was ensuring that we included meaningful information into the short space provided. It was very difficult to take the broad scope of information from the articles that we looked at, and determine what was the most important information to include in the article. To determine this, we tried to look at the information from consumers prospective to try and imagine what they would find the most relevant. Once we shifted our mind set, it made sifting through the information much simpler.
Overall writing this article on the health benefits of fish oil was a challenge, but one that got us to push outside of our comfort zones, and gave us an invaluable experience that will help us as we move forward into our careers as Dietitian’s.
Nutrition Counselling Assignment
The nutrition counseling assignment was a very enlightening experience that took me through a variety of emotions.
Before starting this course and completing my preliminary interview, I was very nervous in my abilities to provide a meaningful experience for my client. Although I recognized that this assignment was intended to allow a learning experience, I still wanted to ensure that I provide the client with some useful tools or information so they felt that is was a meaningful activity. I would have to say that my greatest concern was that I would have the skills and confidence to successfully carry out the nutrition counseling session. To calm my nerves, I just kept telling myself that this is my first experience counseling a patient and that it is not going to be perfect because I am still learning. I also continued to tell myself that although I will get more comfortable in this role it is never going to be perfect as there is always something else to learn, and new skills to acquire.
The preliminary counseling session had a couple of unexpected experiences, and thus did not go according to plan. The original time and date agreed upon for the initial interview failed to come to fruition due to a scheduling mishap. Because of this I was unable to complete the preliminary interview before the in class debriefing session. Although this initially felt disastrous, upon reflection it was actually a valuable learning experience. In practice there are inevitably going to be times where I will have clients change appointments at the last minute, or not show up all together. This experience taught me that in the end it is not a disaster as appointments can always be rescheduled. Luckily I was able to re-schedule with my client as to complete the preliminary interview, even though it was after the initial dead line
After the Scheduling mishap, the preliminary counseling session went very well! My client had quite a unique situation in that she was dealing with some troubles with disordered eating. Initially, I thought this might be too great in scope for me to handle due to my limited knowledge, but I thought it would be a good challenge. As soon as I started the counseling session, all of my nerves were put at ease. The client was very friendly and open, and was very keen to participate in the session. Although the client description had mentioned disordered eating, I soon came to discover that the client had already overcome a number of struggles, and was looking for more tools to help her continue down her road to wellness. This experience introduced me to the notion that all though a case may seem one way, they can often end up being completely different. It taught me to come into every situation prepared, but open minded to expect the unexpected.
The follow up session went equally well. From my first session with my client, I sensed that she was looking for some tools to help her establish a healthy relationship with food. To prepare for the follow up session, I gathered a few resources related to the food groups as well as portion control, but I decided to leave the format of the session open ended to enable her to ask any questions she may have. This proved to work out well, as the client was very appreciative of the resources I brought, but seemed to be more interested in having a number of her questions answered.
This whole experience taught me the importance of coming into each counseling session open minded, and tailoring the counseling approach to suit the needs of each client. Overall, this experience more than any other made me very excited to start my career as a Dietitian!
Nutrition Workshop
For our nutrition workshop Kelsey and I visited Ridgeway Elementary in North Vancouver. The topic of our workshop was lower sugar drinks and healthy snacks. Over all the workshop went really well and provided a great learning experience for both of us!
Self Evaluation
This is my self evaluation describing my journey through FNH 380 and how I fulfilled the learning objectives.
Tutorial Leadership
Our tutorial focused on the topic of ethical decision making in professional settings. This tutorial provided a fantastic opportunity for my group members and I to explore a topic that is not generally given much thought on a daily basis. While preparing this tutorial, it brought to mind how decision making is something we do multiple times on a daily basis, but generally do not give much thought. Exploring the concept of ethical decision making also made me realize what a complex process it can be. It made me think projectively to being a practicing dietitian, and how I myself may face scenarios such as the one faced in our featured case with Mary. In such a situation, it will be beneficial to have the knowledge to undergo a systematic process to achieve the best possible outcome in regards to decision making. In addition to being a great reflective experience for myself, it also gave me valuable tools to creating similar presentations in the future.
Although I believe our tutorial went quite well overall, our classmates were able to provide some valuable insight into areas that we can improve that I would have never considered. First of all, the case we chose was quite lengthy, and from the feedback we received was quite intimidating. Prior to our presentation I had not considered this, but once pointed out it was quite evident. In the future I will take this into consideration in regards to both presentations and cases, and try to look at it from the audiences perspective, to ensure that they are not too overwhelming or tedious. A second piece of feedback that we got was that the outline to decision making we chose to use from the Canadian College of Dietitian’s was quite long, and that a number of groups did not have enough time to apply all of the steps to the case. In hindsight, we should have taken the ten steps and streamlined them into a more applicable framework given the short amount of time we had. Taking this into consideration, I will make a conscious effort in the future to ensure that components of presentations fit better into the allotted time by testing it out prior to the presentation.
Overall creating this tutorial was a fantastic learning experience that provided me with both an opportunity for personal reflection, as well as a chance to gain pointers on how to improve future presentations.
Healthcare Team Challenge
Event Description: The second Inter-professional Passport event I chose to attend was the Healthcare Team Challenge. This event consisted of two teams composed of individuals from all of the health care programs, to prepare a care plan based on a given case study, and present their plan to a panel of judges as well as a live audience. Although they prepared their plans before the presentation, during the event, they were given two twists that they were to develop recommendations for as a team and then present them to the audience.
Reflection: I found this event to be fascinating! When I initially decided to attend this event, I thought it would be an interesting presentation, further emphasizing the importance of an inter-professional healthcare team to providing superior patient care that was introduced at the Inter-Professional Healthcare Mixer. Although the presentation did build on such concepts, it ended up doing much more for my own appreciation of the importance of an inter-professional healthcare team.
First of all I thought this was a fantastic opportunity for the students involved, allowing them to get a glimpse of what it is to be part of a team of people with many different back grounds working towards a common goal. This is an opportunity that is often not given to students until they are in a practicum or actual workplace setting. I feel as though this is a great way for students to experience what it is to work in such a team, but without the pressure of caring for a living person. I really liked how they were presented a dynamic case with many interplays, that I believe would be representative of real cases they will face in the future. This provides a great opportunity for people to engage in dynamic reasoning rather than just the linear reasoning that is often associated with academia. I also appreciated the twists that were thrown in that required the teams to use their critical thinking skills in a time sensitive manner. It really highlights how patient care is ever changing, and how although a patient or case may come in with a certain set of circumstances, they are not static, but rather ever changing thus requiring a healthcare team to make new decisions, or to re-evaluate previous ones. I am confident that the participants gained some fantastic insight through this experience, but I have to say even though I was only a spectator, I did as well.
This truly was a learning experience for me. Even as a student in a professional health care program, I have to admit that I was not aware of the large number of people it takes to comprise a comprehensive healthcare team. I had always considered a health care team to consist of doctors and dentists, nurses, dietitians, therapists and pharmacist. I had never really considered that a number of other professionals including audiologists, and social workers would be considered as part of the core healthcare team. I can humbly say that this experience has proven me wrong. As this care of the family in Northern BC highlighted, the social worker and audiologist as well as the dental hygienist, played roles that would not have been able to be nearly as well addressed had they not been included. The second insight this experience gave me was how there are notable overlaps in a number of the healthcare roles. When the second twist came, and the sole family doctor became ill and unable to practice, the overlap of roles within the rest of the healthcare team enabled the missing role to be filled. Although a healthcare team would be stressed with the additional responsibilities, because of the overlap of expertise, collectively the role would be able to be adequately filled, without having a substantial impact on patient care.
Well, this truly was another excellent experience that took my learning outside of the lecture halls, and countless Power Point slides and into the real world. I have truly gained a further appreciation for the role of a healthcare team, and I hope to perhaps further my learning from the Healthcare Team Challenge, but next time from the stage rather than in the audience!
Networking Reflection
Today was my first meeting with my fourth year, senior mentor and the rest of my group, and it was such a fantastic experience! There are four people in total in my group including Kaitlin Berris, who is our fourth year mentor, as well as Laree, Esther and myself making up the third years. Upon introducing ourselves, it became apparent that we all had quite different journeys getting into the program, as well as have quite different paths we hope to take once we graduate. It was a very interesting experience for me because, it gave me appreciation for how different the backgrounds of people in the programs are, and diverse the profession is. For example, of the four of us, one person hopes to get into sports nutrition, one hopes to get involved in proactive healthcare through nutrition, while the remaining two were hoping to get involved in the clinical aspects nutrition. This affirmed for me one of my favorite aspects about the dietetics profession, which is how within a single profession, there are so many diverse career opportunities a person can take. I hope to take advantage of this opportunity, by getting involved in many different aspects, including clinical, preventative healthcare, as well as possibly publishing a cookbook focusing on Asian type cuisines.
In addition for giving us a greater appreciation for the professions diversity, Kaitlin was also able to give us some fantastic advice as we move forward in the program. She encouraged us to get involved with everyone in our class, and as a group try to organize events and gatherings to all get together. The small class size, and common interests of our class gives us a unique opportunity for getting to know each other on a deeper level than other programs do. For example arranging get together, and getting to know everyone if someone was in the medical class would be near impossible because there are three hundred people in the program. I think we as a group should take this opportunity given to us to maintain unity between everyone to make the program even more enjoyable, and to form relationships that could likely carry forward into our professional careers.
Kaitlin also encouraged us to get involved in learning opportunities outside of the classroom, to give us opportunities to expand our learning as well as network. She suggested attending some of the Inter-professional Passport events, as she had found these to be great opportunities to learn about some of the other health professions we will be collaborating with in the future, as well as to network with people that are in the Dietetics profession. Although it is early in the program, I hope to become involved in such events to gain experiences and interactions that cannot come from textbooks and lectures. I think this is great advice because such events will bring a human, and interaction component into the rather text based University model of teaching. Such opportunities enable individuals to tailor their learning in a way that gives them more exposure to areas they are interested in than can be offered through classes.
Overall I found this to be a very insightful experience thus far, and look forward to meeting and collaborating with my group members as we go through the Dietetics program together.