Today was the day. The last day of my internship!
I have been sick since Sunday but with lots of sudafed and tylenol, I did manage to squeeze in some cool things this week. I taught a staff training on the Nutrition Care Process, performed a time study on someone in the health department’s clinic, helped with some projects for my preceptor and presented my mini case study as one of my final projects in my internship.
I really liked this rotation despite all of the negative things I have heard about WIC. I actually think WIC is a great program. For starters, it’s supplemental for only very specific, healthy foods like milk, cheese, beans, fruits and vegetables. It also provides nutrition education. Where else are so many people going to get nutrition education? I actually learned SO much about prenatal nutrition, high risk pregnancy and breastfeeding in this rotation.
Something great about the facility where I worked was that there 6 nutritionists in the WIC office and 1 RD in the clinic. I got to shadow everyone for a day. It was a great experience to see so many different counseling styles in one setting. I learned a lot.
I realized in this rotation that I have really grown in my professional skills. When I first started my internship, I was intimidated by the thought of talking to people about their diets. I was afraid they would ask me a question I didn’t know or that I would say something dumb. I actually remember during the 3rd or 4th week of my internship when my internship director had to tell my clinical preceptor to make me start talking to patients on my own. Yeah, I’ve come a long way since then.
Packing up my little cubicle was kind of sad today. It is a strange feeling to work SO hard at something for 6 months and then all of the sudden it’s over. I am happy… but I still can’t believe I’m done.
I have already been asked about 10x today when I’m going to take the RD exam. I’m not really sure yet. But I do know that I will be spending some time catching up on sleep, reading for leisure, playing with my dogs, and generally enjoying life :)
Cheers <3