Post-Grad Plans

Hi Lemon Wedge friends! It has been a while, but I haven’t forgotten about my blog. I took a little bit of time off from blogging (even though that it is a little hypocritical based on my last post about how students should be blogging – oops! #guilty) because a lot and a little have all been happening at the same time.  After an incredibility busy last school year taking graduate classes and completing my Dietetic Internship, I was burnt out to say the least – just read almost any post I wrote about my internship…I was always talking about how busy I was. Anyways, I spent this semester enjoying a lot more free time with friends (and taking some exciting trips to Chicago, DC, Pittsburg, and Raleigh), testing out the ketogenic diet, learning more about nutrition (including integrative and functional nutrition—more to come in the next few posts), completing my master’s degree, and figuring out what’s “next”.

One of my post-grad goals is to have my own private nutrition consulting practice to work one-on-one with patients, but also maybe teach classes, do some corporate wellness, work with food and health brands, and continue blogging. The development of this is still in the works, but I will definitely be sharing as things being to develop.

Before I build a business or get a “real person” job as a dietitian, I will be taking a big trip around the globe! From January to around April I’ll be anywhere from India to New Zealand to Germany and quite a few places in between. I had to take advantage of this time in my life to see and experiences places I have only dreamed about.

Now, I am officially getting back on the blogging bandwagon, but with these big plans coming up, my blog posts might be changing a little bit. As my life changes, my blog posts will be evolving with me, but I’m honestly not sure exactly what that will look like yet. I’ll still keep it nutrition and health related but you might see some exotic foods and travel tips, plus maybe some business building updates and integrative and functional nutrition wisdom.

Anyways, I can’t wait for this next chapter of my life (and blog) and hope you enjoy being along for the ride. With only 5 days until graduation, the next time I post I will officially have a master’s degree and two more letters added to my name! à Dana Goldberg, (almost) MS, RDN

5 Reasons Why Every Student Should Have a Blog

Over the past year, I have been avidly posting on my blog/dietitian Instagram page (@DanaGoldbegRDN) which has somehow resulted in free goodies (aka healthy foods) being shipped to me from different food companies. Now, suddenly, a few of my friends are all interested in starting blogs because they think it is so cool to get free “stuff”. While free stuff (especially when it is food!) is wonderful, it is never what I intended to come from this blog, and while some people start a blog intentionally to get free stuff…or make a living for that matter, I strongly encourage all students to start a blog for other reasons…here are my top 5:

1. A blog allows you to reflect on experiences. I talked about my career confusion in a previous post and also shared my journey through my Dietetic Internship as well as my undergraduate and graduate classes and study abroad in many different blog posts. Having to sit down and write that post on all these different experiences really makes you think critically about what you have done. What did I get out of this and what should I share with other people? It is a good way to avoid just going through the motions of life.
2. You learn about new and different topics. Yes, the weekly posts have fallen off the train a few times over the past 3 years of blogging, but after putting out over 100 blog posts, I have to keep coming up with new and different content to share. Some of my posts are just life updates and others are things I learn in class, but others are topics family and friends mention that I have to go home and research. Not only does this allow me to share information with you, but I am also able to add to my personal bank of information to use in future careers and help future clients/patients.
3. It helps you figure out what you are passionate about. When I first started blogging, I shared lots of different recipes. I had just moved into my first apartment and was cooking all my meals for myself for the first time, and I even considered going to culinary school! But as time went on, I realized I didn’t love my posts about recipes. I didn’t want to be a food blogger…I wanted to be a nutrition I don’t love spending hours in the kitchen or trying to take the perfect picture of my food. Instead, I realized that I loved writing posts about the science and research behind nutrition recommendations, talking about popular diets and foods, and debunking nutrition myths.
4. You can become a better writer. I don’t claim to be Shakespeare by any means (nor do I ever aspire to be a magnificent writer), but I went through grade school DESPISING my English classes. No joke, I would come home crying from school because I hated writing and I was bad at it. I swore I would never end up in a job where I had to write, but in the end, no matter what job you end up in, you are going to have to write something at some point. Having to put words to paper every week writing posts, summarizing research and knowledge I have, is definitely a skill I can take with me wherever I end up.
5. It is something you can share with future employers. While I may have internships and volunteer opportunities on my resume, getting a job after graduation is probably not going to be a walk in the park. I’m not knocking the internships and other experiences that I have had – they have been great – but having a blog is something that is my own. I think it shows a little bit of my personality, it is evidence of my knowledge in the nutrition field, and it shows that I have gone a little bit beyond the classic summer internships that college students have. (Maybe I am chalking my blog up to be more than it is, but I like to think that it might help me get a job in a few months 😉 )

While I have shared my experiences blogging about food, nutrition, and health, these reasons can really be applied to students in any field of study (Spanish major? Practice your Spanish writing skills. Accounting major? Share some personal finance advice or some crazy number stuff that I don’t understand. Anthropology major? Teach me about another culture.). Even if you keep your blog completely private and don’t share it with anyone, you can still reap the many of the blogging benefits.

I’m a Registered Dietitian!

Wow, the past few weeks have felt like quite the whirlwind! I finished up the last of my four weeks working as the pediatric ICU dietitian, graduated from my dietetic internship, studied hundreds of pages of dietetics information, made and learned oodles of flash cards, and took (and passed!) the Registered Dietitian Exam yesterday!!

I am officially Dana Goldberg, RDN!

(Not to mention, this is also my 100^th blog post!)

With all of these milestones comes lots of self-reflection and things I want to share about my experiences, so first I thought I would use this post to share my thoughts 1-week post- dietetic internship.

I’ll start off by saying that these past 11 months have been some of the toughest months of my career as a student- both academically and mentally. Taking almost a full graduate degree course load and working 32 hours a week as an intern sometimes made me want to pull my hair out, but I am proud to say that I successfully made it out alive. There aren’t many things that I am ever really proud of myself for; it just isn’t my personality and I tend to be pretty hard on myself. Graduating high school didn’t faze me (I was livid and embarrassed when my mom tried to put a congratulatory sign on our lawn), graduating undergrad kind of seemed impressive (but everyone around me was also graduating college so I didn’t feel like it was that special), but I will confidently say that I am proud to have completed a dietetic internship and passed the RD exam. It feels like the hardest part – the uphill climb – is over and I can finally catch my breath.

I know I have shared this in a few previous posts, but I honestly didn’t love my time working at a hospital as a clinical dietitian. I didn’t feel like I really made any lasting impact on patients’ lives nor helped improve their long-term health. However, spending over 1,500 hours 27 different areas of the hospital, plus working with over 35 different dietitians, I learned so much about clinical nutrition that will set me up for success in any nutrition field that I end up going into. Although I dreaded walking into that hospital some days, I don’t think I would have wanted to do it any other way.

Finally, I can’t talk about my experience as a dietetic intern without mentioning my staff relief rotation. During the last four weeks of the internship, each intern got to choose an area of the hospital where she would act as the dietitian. We still had a dietitian to co-sign our charting documents, but we were basically on our own as if we were the sole dietitian covering that area. I chose to spend those four weeks in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), and it was my favorite four weeks on the entire internship. I chose the PICU because I found I enjoyed all of the enteral and parenteral nutrition (nutrition via tube feeds and IVs) calculations in the ICU setting. I also went into my internship wanting to work with kids – and especially enjoyed my pediatric rotations during the internship. The first week of staff relief was absolutely terrifying but by the end, I felt like I had the confidence to go out into the field and be a dietitian (which was very reassuring!). Also, I have to give a huge THANK YOU to the PICU dietitian and my staff relief preceptor Melanie for teaching me more than I thought I would ever know (and also making me laugh every day – even when I was working with kids who were critically ill).

Now, one week since the end of the internship, these are my main thoughts, but I’m sure as time goes by I will have more thoughts and reflections to share.

If you are a current RD2Be, dietetics student, or dietetic intern, be sure to stay tuned for my posts over the next few weeks because I’ll be sharing my dietetic internship and RD exam advice. Feel free to send me all your burning questions and I can answer them in my posts 🙂

Cruising to the Finish Line

Happy April! I guess it has been quite a while since I wrote my last official update on my Dietetic Internship in December. It seems like every day goes by so slowly but suddenly I only have 4 weeks left of this semester of school and 15 weeks lefts of my Internship.

Since December I have had my bariatric rotation, renal (kidney) rotation in a dialysis unit, critical care rotations in the Medical, Surgical, Trauma, and Neuro Intensive Care Units, and now I am in my pediatric rotations. I definitely enjoyed critical care more than I thought I would and more than I enjoyed my general medical/surgical rotations earlier in the year. It was a lot less talking to patients (mostly because they were sedated and on a ventilator), and a lot more tube feeding and TPN (IV nutrition) calculations.

I originally started my Internship thinking I would want to work in pediatrics, but by the time I started peds I knew it probably wasn’t where I really wanted to end up. The past three weeks in my general pediatrics were definitely a nice change of pace getting to see kids, but it is also a whole new world. I feel like I am back at square one trying to learn all the different infant formulas. My next three weeks are in the Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care Units, which I think I am going to like a lot more than general pediatrics since I liked the adult ICUs.

Between all of my clinical rotations, we also had a ton of activities in March for National Nutrition Month. We had one full week dedicated to doing things in the community, including playing fruit and vegetable games with kids at a Head Start preschool, teaching a nutrition health class at a high school, participating in a high school health fair, and doing a food demo for hospital employees. Our biggest event was the National Nutrition Month Celebration Day in the atrium cafeteria at the hospital. Each intern, including myself, put together a big presentation board, an activity, and several handouts about a specific nutrition topic. My topic was plant-based diets (don’t worry, I’m not saying you should become a vegetarian or vegan). I discussed the importance of limiting meat consumption and encouraged more beans, vegetables, and whole grains. Not only are there lots of health benefits of plant based foods, you also get more variety of nutrients by switching things up. (I have included my plant based grocery list and plant based protein source handouts here, too!)

Plant Based Grocery List

Plant Based Protein Sources

From all of these community events I realized that I take for granted how much I know about nutrition. Because nutrition is the world I have been living in for the past 5 years, I sometimes forget what the average person knows. Some of the questions I got during the week really reminded me that people don’t know enough about nutrition and I have a lot of valuable knowledge to share.

I also had a big presentation for all of the hospital dietitians in March, which was probably the most nerve-racking experience ever. So, now that March/National Nutrition Month is over, I feel like I am just cruising to the finish line. I have a few big papers do before the end of April for school, one more big presentation at the hospital, and only three more major rotations until my Internship is over!

And for the final (and most exciting) update, I recently found out I won a scholarship for an educational international travel experience once I graduate in December! The location of my trip has not been confirmed, but I will keep you posted when I decide.

I guess I need to do these updates more often so they aren’t so long. Until next week, Happy Easter and Happy Passover from this RD2Be!

When you are stuck in a rut…

When I was planning my blog post for the week, I had in my head that I was going to do a Dietetic Internship update and talk about all of my exciting National Nutrition Month activities from this month. I’ll definitely do a post on this but it is going to sit on the back burner until next week.

As I have shared here on my blog several times, I have a lot on my plate working as a Dietetic Intern and going to graduate school. Between work, school, assignments, papers, and everything in between, it feels like this semester has sucked the lift out of me. I felt like my mantra was “work, sleep, homework, repeat”. I wasn’t feeling like myself and I even skipped out on going to the gym for two full weeks (which is 100% not like me- exercise is my stress reliever and boost of energy)

This lack of motivation and “blah” feeling really hit me a few weeks ago. I had to get back to my workouts to relieve some stress and give me a jolt of energy. Clearly my typical routine of going to the same gym everyday after work and doing my Kayla Itsines BBG circuit training wasn’t working so I decided to try something new.

In the past, I have found group fitness classes are much more motivating than working out alone. The energy of all the people around me always motivates me so I thought this would be a good place to start. I frequent yoga and spinning classes, but in order to pull me out of my rut I had to jump outside my comfort zone. The solution: find every fitness studio in Cleveland that offers a free first time class and give it a shot.

…And that is exactly what I have been doing. In the last week I went boxing for the first time (something I never thought I would do) and tried out a climbing class on a versa-climber (which, holy s***, was the hardest 30 minutes ever!). Since the weather has been a little bit nicer this week (ie. The sun made a few appearances), I have also been able to go for a few runs outside. Boy, does fresh air do wonders for your mood and energy.

To be completely honest, the last week has been amazing. I feel like a new person, I have so much more energy, my friends can’t get me to shut up about my new favorite workout classes, and I also happened to get some exciting news this week (tune in to next week’s post to find out!).

What is the point of all this and why should you care about my rut?

Well, because I think I can confidently say that everyone falls into a rut at some point. We are all busy with dozens of responsibilities being pulled in dozens of directions that sometimes cause us to get burnt out and lose motivation. Maybe you lose motivation to workout (like me), but maybe it is your schoolwork, job, or something else.

If you get stuck in a rut, don’t just sit down there. Figure out how to pull yourself out. There is no way that we can all be motivated all the time. Einstein famously said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. If what you are doing now isn’t working then try something new…something that excites you or makes you feel good. Even just stepping outside for 30 minutes a day to get some fresh air can completely change your mood. It might not be easy to step outside your “normal” but it can definitely be worth it!

Being Vegetarian

Exactly four weeks ago I decided to become a vegetarian…temporarily. Yep, I have officially been a vegetarian for one full month. I had been pondering the idea for a while and I had finally used up all the chicken and turkey in my freezer, so I thought it would be a good time to start. (Oh, and I guess I should include that I just cut out all meat and fish. I still ate eggs and dairy.)

By no means did I plan on being a vegetarian forever, but as a future dietitian I thought it would be a good experience to walk in the shoes of vegetarian patients and clients that I will work with.

Anyways, I thought I would share some things I have learned from my experience with you this week.

The good, the bad, and the indifferent

The first question I have gotten from all my friends and family is, “how do you feel”, and honestly, I can’t say that I feel much different. Prior to my vegetarian experiment, I didn’t each much red meat at all; I mostly stuck to chicken, turkey, tuna, and salmon. Research has shown that there are a lot more benefits to cutting out red meat compared to other lean meats, so I don’t know if that has anything to do with the lack of change I have felt.

People are also very concerned about protein, so I’ll also mention that I was keeping track of my food intake using MyFitnessPal at the beginning to make sure I was getting enough protein. While I could easily meet my protein needs for the day, I had to be a lot more conscious of including it at every meal and snack than I was before.

With that being said, eating out was a struggle– not because there aren’t any vegetarian option (you can get pasta and potatoes pretty much anywhere), but because restaurant menus lack vegetarian protein sources. I especially had a hard time in the cafeteria at the hospital. After the first week I started bringing a container of tofu and beans to add to salads and soups to make sure I got my protein in.

So while it may have been a little difficult at times, I actually am really happy that I gave vegetarianism a shot. I had to get super creative in the kitchen, and find new ways to incorporate tofu, tempeh, beans, and eggs into my meals to make sure I got enough protein in for the day (which means lots of new vegetarian recipes and food combination to share in the coming weeks!). I also now have a good basis of vegetarian recommendations for any patients or clients who come to me with questions.

And finally (skip this section if you don’t want to hear about flatulence and bowel movements), vegetarianism has made me very regular. Vegetarian diets tend to be a lot higher in fiber which kept everything moving smoothly. The first week I was a little gassy (probably due to all the beans I was eating), but my body got use to it and I have been fine ever since.

Overall thoughts

I think a lot more good came out of this experiment than bad. I have cooked up some new things in the kitchen and have had experiences that will help me be a better dietitian. Meeting protein needs can be tough but definitely manageable if you plan ahead.

While I think going completely vegetarian isn’t really necessary (unless you would like to, of course), there are lots of benefits to being a vegetarian. Plant-based diets usually have a lot more fiber, vitamins, and minerals. There is also lots of research showing that decreasing meat intake can help prevent chronic diseases, aid in weight loss, and save the environment.

If I were to give any recommendations, I would say that it is always beneficial to cut back on red meat intake (Eat it no more than 1x per week) and increase you fruit and veggie intake. You can also try Meatless Mondays or another modified version of being a vegetarian to get some of the benefits (such as meatless lunches during the week).

Looking forward

This week I am planning on including a lot of fish and meat to see if I feel any different (I give you any updates in next weeks post). After that, I’ll definitely be adding fish and meat back into my diet but probably not in the same quantities as before. I am going to continue to include vegetarian meals on a regular basis because they both healthy and – more importantly – they taste good!

Considerations

If you are or decide to become a vegetarian or vegan long-term (longer than 1-2 months), I suggest seeing a dietitian (or sending me an email, I’m happy to help!) since there are some vitamin and mineral deficiencies that can occur if you aren’t taking supplements.

Career Confusion

Unfortunately, if your looking for helpful nutrition information, this isn’t the post for you. Instead, it is only an update on my unknown future career plans. But don’t worry, I’ll be dishing up some more advise in my future posts.

I am officially passed the halfway point of my Dietetic Internship! I am currently in my renal (kidney) rotation in a dialysis unit, which is fine…nothing special. I still have critical care, pediatrics, and oncology rotations this semester.

Recently, though, I have been struggling a bit. As I have said before in other posts, I haven’t really loved working in the hospital. I haven’t felt like I make any meaningful connections with patients and most of them don’t seem to care at all about what I am talking to them about, which I totally get – I don’t think that if I were sick in a hospital I would really care about how much salt was in my food or if I was getting enough protein.

I did enjoy my outpatient rotations much more than working in the hospital, but something still wasn’t clicking. I think I almost convinced myself I liked it because that it what I had always pictured myself doing. Do I still see myself doing some nutrition counseling? … Yes, it is definitely something that is still interesting to me, but I am not sure that I can picture myself doing it as a full-time job.

I am very happy I am learning my likes and dislikes now and not later, but you can see why I am confused now. I feel like the college sophomore that realized they didn’t like their major and is trying to figure out what to do. From the time I declared my nutrition major freshman year in undergrad I always saw myself being a Clinical Dietitian, and now I am realizing that is not really the path I want to go down.

Thankfully I have tons of supportive advisors and professors at school that are willing to help me figure out what I want to do. Maybe it is working in industry (for a cool, healthy food company), teaching at local colleges, traveling with an international health organization, working in media or social media, or doing a job that I don’t even know exists — I am exploring my options.

So for now, we will see where the next year takes me. In the mean time, if anyone has any nutrition career suggestions… my ears are open!

Internship Update: Finally Time for Clinical

Last Friday marked a very exciting day…the last day of my food service rotations in my Internship. After 2 long weeks in the kitchen cutting fruit and making sandwiches, 1 week in the storeroom and purchasing, and 3 weeks working with a patient meal service manager, I am finally on to my clinical rotations!

As much as I don’t enjoy food service and could never see myself working in the field, I did have some valuable experiences. I learned just about everything there is to know about what patients can order, how patients order, where their food comes from, how it gets to them, and everything in between. As a dietitian, I can definitely see why it might be important to know what options the patients have while they are in the hospital.

Having my food service rotations first gives me good background knowledge on how the nutrition and dietary departments run, and I think I am well equipped to give patients meal recommendations based on their individual diet needs. I guess that I one perk of getting food service out of the way at the beginning (and I am glad I never have to put on another hair net again!).

Now, I have just finished day 2 of my clinical orientation. Day 1 was learning a lot about the electronic medical record and how the healthcare system works, but I am quickly getting the hang of it. My preceptor covers telemetry, general medicine, and adult cystic fibrosis floors so I have seen quite the variety of patients so far. I got to do my first note on my own today, and diagnosed a patient with moderate malnutrition. The patient’s doctor agreed with my diagnosis, which means the hospital gets reimbursed for my patient visit. I also feel very official (and old/not smart enough) wearing my white lab coat around 😉

That is pretty much all that is going on in the hospital. October is my busiest month with class work so I have been a busy beaver working on all my assignments every day after work. That unfortunately leaves me little time for any new recipes, but I have been enjoying a super simple (and of course, healthy) spaghetti squash bowl for dinner. I just mix spaghetti squash, steamed broccoli, peas, and chicken or ground turkey with some pasta sauce and wah lah… dinner is served.

Internship Status: Week 9/49

Summer Plans and Future Blogging

As promised, I am back with a summer plans update. (If you want to know what I have been up to the past 5 months, check out my last post.) Being that my Dietetic Internship (DI) starts August 7, my summer is cut a bit shorter than usual…and it is probably my last summer ever since my DI/grad school will run from August 2017-December 2018 without much of a break. That means I am planning to have a very exciting and busy summer, hopefully with some relaxation involved too!

If you know me, you know traveling is obviously #1 on my to do list. Here are the plans so far:

• Two days after commencement, my family is going to Peru for 10 days of adventure
• We have a long weekend in New Jersey for my cousin’s graduation
• A girls, long weekend trip planned in Chicago with my mom and cousins
• My grandma and I are spending a week in San Francisco and Napa in July
• I have a trip to Boston in the works with a friend
• And hopefully I will also be able to squeeze in a weekend visit to see my friends in Cleveland and Columbus

I’ll also be working and coaching gymnastics here and there, cooking up some new recipes in the kitchen (my goal is to make 1-2 new recipes each week, which I will share…if they turn out well, of course), trying new Detroit restaurants while I am home, and getting ready to move into my first solo apartment. I will be living in Downtown Cleveland for the duration of my 18-month program. I am excited to not only live downtown close to all the good restaurants (obviously food is #1) but also experience Cleveland from a new angle. Since I want to move to Downtown Detroit when I graduate, I think this will be a great way to make sure I enjoy living in a growing urban area.

This brings me to my plans for future blogging. Part of the reason I took a little break from blogging is that I started to run out of ideas. Between gathering images, information, and trying to figure out what the lesson from each post should be, it was just a little too time consuming and began to feel like a chore.

With that being said, I still love writing these posts and sharing my experiences with you. That means, I am still going to be posting (hopefully even more now!) but the posts won’t be so much about sharing information and research or trying to teach a lesson. I will probably be writing more about healthy (and yummy) new things I find at the grocery store, healthy and cool new restaurants I try, and my travel adventures (which obviously will include a lot of food). I’m sure there will still be tips for making healthy choices and probably some interesting food facts here and there, but those won’t be the focus of the posts.

Honestly, I’m not sure how it is going to work out so I guess we will find out together 😉

Dana

Back & Better Than Ever

I guess senior year got the best of me and The Lemon Wedge took the back seat. But no worries, I am back to blogging. I thought I would use this post to update you on what I have been up to this last semester and what I have planned for the future.

As I have talked about before, in order to make my dreams of being a Registered Dietitian (RD) come true, I have to complete a Dietetic Internship (read more here). Soooo last summer and fall took the GRE, narrowed down the list of programs I would apply to and began working on my applications. The process to apply is similar to a residency after medical school where you apply to many programs but are only “matched”/accepted to one program (or you don’t match at all and have to reapply the next year). Deadline for applications was February 15^th so I kept busy over winter break and the first few weeks of my semester writing, revising, and re-revising my personal statements over and over and over again until I could practically recite them to you by heart. Finally, on February 14^th, with trembling hands, I clicked the infamous “submit” button. From there, it was a big waiting game until “Match Day” when you find out the results.

I ended up applying to 6 different Dietetic Internships, all which were combined with a Master’s degree program: University Hospitals (Cleveland), Veteran’s Affairs Hospital (Cleveland), Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland), Ohio State (Columbus), Rush Medical Center (Chicago), and Tufts Medical Center (Boston).

Finally, Match Day (April 2) rolled around and at 7pm on the nose I logged into my online application to find out that I had matched with my first choice- University Hospitals (Cleveland) and I would stay at Case Western Reserve University to get my Master’s in Nutrition! It was quite an exciting day and I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders…I was officially and “RD2Be”!

Celebrating with Tacos and Sangria

In other exciting news from this semester:
-I had my first research paper published in the Current Nutrition Reports journal. It was a paper that I co-authored as part of my independent study class last semester about dietary supplement use in older adults.

President Snyder and I 🙂

-I also was selected to be one of the students who decided which professor at the university receives the Excellence in Mentoring award. Being on this committee got me an invitation to Barbara Snyder’s house for a fancy reception…exciting!! (She is the president of the university and basically a celebrity around here!)

That brings us to today. I am currently writing this blog post, as it seemed like a great way to procrastinate studying for my last final exam as an undergraduate (#senoritis). I have one last exam in Pathophysiology next Wednesday before I am done. Then there is a week and a half of lots of food and fun activities with my fellow graduating seniors before commencement.

Now that you are up to speed on the past 5 months, and this post is getting long, I am going to call it quits here. I should get back to studying, but in the next few days I will be writing another post about my summer plans and my future plans for The Lemon Wedge.

Glad to be back!

Dana