A week of dietetics has been and gone. By the end of the week, I had pretty much wanted to curl up into a ball in a little corner, rocking back and forth wondering what I had gotten myself into this time. I don’t know about anyone else, but every time I start something new, I become this quiet little mouse and it takes me a while before I warm up to my new environment. Together with all the new people and content, I was definitely left feeling very overwhelmed. There were so many assessment tasks to keep track of and so much more information to remember. Daunting would be an appropriate word to describe it all.
Thinking back to my first week of honours, I’m pretty sure I felt the same way with all the various assignments and with my whole project. Yet, by the end of the year, I had managed to come out on top, whilst juggling various things. So I know I can do the same this year.
One the the things that I’m really looking forward to are the reflective entries we have to write every three to four weeks about anything related to the course. As evident from my blog, I am all for self reflection. Now, I look back on my first week of dietetics and think that this is going to be a great year. No doubt it will be busy and I will be under the pump most of the time, but it will be rewarding. I can often see myself working in a hospital setting, however anything outside the world of diabetes is like stepping outside my comfort zone. Nonetheless, it will be great to learn about other conditions where nutrition plays an important role. It will be fascinating to see where professional interests of my peers lie. Passion plays an important role in a driving career and I would like to what everyone’s ‘driving forces’ are, in any career role. I love finding out the inner workings of a person and listening to their stories that make them who they are.
Attached to dietetics is a very practical role involving a lot of interpersonal skills. For that reason, I’m glad that our course is very practical based with Teaching Clinics every week to consolidate our skills in different areas of communication with clients. Another component we have are Case Based Tutorials (CBT). Here, we are given a case study and asked to formulate a nutrition care plan appropriate to the client. These cases are typically very straight forward compared to some of things we may face in the real world. But the real challenge is completing this within two hours without jumping on each other’s throats. In our first CBT class, there were some great debates, which got heated really quickly regarding certain aspects of the case. Something that we each have to learn is to listen to others’ reasonings for their choices and to weigh their reasonings up with your own and in the circumstances of the case study.
I’m very much looking forward to developing a more professional attitude towards healthcare together with my peers. By the end of this course, I expect everyone to be great healthcare professionals who are client centered.
‘Clients and patients are more than just their identification numbers and medical conditions – they’re also people.’
HangryPancreas 
As with everything in life, happiness and the pursuit of it are perhaps my biggest drivers. Passion and accomplishment would be somewhere second. But unless I’m happy, no amount of passion or (sense of) accomplishment seem to make anything worth the effort. But that’s just me.