Halfway through my dietetic C placement

I can't believe it but I’m halfway through my 12-week C placement! C placement is the final placement in my dietetics course and at the end of it I should be a fully independent practitioner with my own caseload of patients.

I was lucky to back to the same hospital that I was at for my B placement. I’ve got blog posts about B placement here and here. This meant I could jump right back in and hit the ground running as I was used to all the systems and knew my way around. The hospital is definitely very different this time, there are lots of staff absences and the team are quite stretched because of this. it also seemed like a lot more wards had COVID patients or suspected COVID patients. This also meant we had a lot more spare time as staff couldn’t always take us to the wards with them or they were too busy.

In my first week I spoke to a patient by myself which was terrifying, but it gave me the confidence to know that I can speak to patients and I hadn’t forgotten everything in the 6 weeks break like I thought. The 6 weeks after B placement was filled with uni lectures and coursework so it wasn’t exactly a break, but I did feel out the hospital ‘loop’. I spoke to a patient by myself but also did whole consultations with dietitians supervising me. It was great to jump back in and speak to patients, but I also would’ve liked a chance to observe just to be reintroduced into it. After the 6 weeks break, I did feel like I needed a refresher before doing things myself. But by jumping back in it meant I could take advantage of all the opportunities. As there was a lot of staff absent it meant I couldn’t always have patient facing experience and I spent time in the office. So, I understand why they wanted us to get stuck in straight away. 

Weight management:

This placement has been a bit different as I had 2 weeks out of the hospital and instead working from home for a commercial weight management company. This was a great experience for me as my hospital doesn’t offer a weight management service and I was keen to learn more. During my time there I was able to respond to member queries, review magazine articles and meal plans, and create a factsheet on nutrition and exercise that they would give to their members. I also had to do a journal club, which is where you present a new research paper that would be useful for the team to know about. Keeping up to date with the latest research is a big part of the job and journal clubs help share the information quite efficiently! I really enjoyed my time there and is definitely something I wouldn’t mind pursuing in the future.

There are so many careers in dietetics that aren’t NHS based and these 2 weeks gave me an insight into some of them. I love writing and blogging so getting to review a magazine article and comment on a 7 day meal plan was right up my street. I really enjoyed this part of the placement and will definitely consider future careers in this area.

Diabetes week:

When I was back at the hospital, I had a diabetes week where I spent time doing antenatal clinics for women with gestational diabetes and telephone clinics for patients with type 1 diabetes. To be honest, diabetes isn’t an area that I’m greatly interested in, but this week has been a great opportunity to learn more about it. As diabetes is a very specialist area there's not much a student can do so it was a lot of observing and listening into phone calls. But you do pick up knowledge by doing this. I can do the diet history part of the consultation which is where you ask a patient what they usually eat to get a better idea of their diet. And then the dietitian will take over and suggest swaps to help them manage their blood glucose control better.

Any experience is good experience and it’s good to be able to practice any bits of a consultation that you can. Towards the end of the week, I got to do a few full consultations with women that were newly diagnosed with gestational diabetes. This is a type of diabetes that occurs in pregnancy and it’s extra important to control their blood glucose levels to avoid the baby getting too big. I was scared doing it with the first patient but after that I got into the swing of things and quite enjoyed it! I had to explain what gestational diabetes it, how it affects their baby, and then go through foods that would be suitable or not suitable. Leading the consultation really reinforced my confidence and it feels great to be able to help people make changes.

The hospital based placement has changed in the sense that I feel like we have more responsibility. We’re expected to lead the consultation if it’s a simpler patient and we go to wards by ourselves to gather information about a patient. Towards the end of placement, they’ll expect us to see complex patients and eventually see patients completely independently. This definitely feels like a jump from B placement, but it also feels like a progression that I can handle. I look forward to the rest of C placement and seeing how I grow into an independent practitioner.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog post! I’ll do another one at the end of C placement reflecting on placement as a whole. If you have any questions about dietetic placements or the course as a whole feel free to message me on Instagram @kaegoskitchen !

Bye for now!