In the 7 years I spent at uni (plus a few more because it was punctuated with time off for both the incredible highs of adventure and the depths of illness) learning the intricacies of human health and disease (mostly disease) I learnt a lot.
A lot.
But there are some things uni could never have prepared me for.
There are some things no one mentioned.
Now that I have spent a few years working in the dietetics profession I want to share with you 3 things no one told me about the realities of being a dietitian. Not because I resent not knowing them or even wish I knew them before entering this profession but because they’re real and if you’re working in healthcare you’ve probably figured out by now that coming back to what’s real can keep you on track in your choice to work in an incredibly rewarding but what could just as easily be incredibly draining work.
So, here they are; 3 interesting things nobody tells you at uni about the realities of being a dietitian;
- You Can’t Get Someone Past Your Own Beliefs
Only in the presence of compassion will people allow themselves to see the truth. A. H. Almaas.
If you’re not 100% for your client don’t work with them.
Of course, this is harder to do when you are working in the hospital system or not in your own private practice but if you are working for yourself you have that choice.
Remember first, do no harm.
Make the best choice for them.
If you don’t believe your client can make it, you’re not going to treat them as though they can.
And this doesn’t mean that you tell them you don’t believe in them or that you give them any less education or care, it means the truth shines through brighter and clearer than any spoken word.
It doesn’t matter what you say in words your unconscious communication never lies.
They will know.
It will impact them.
If you work with them against what you think is possible for them you have the potential to be the very thing standing in the way of them and their cure or healing.
Working in healthcare you will see some of the lowest, lows and struggles of human beings. You will see human beings at their most shameful, pitiful and vulnerable. If you’ve never before yourself struggled with some of the seemingly ridiculous things human beings do struggle with like binge eating, food addiction, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, exercise addiction, smoking (the list of strange things human beings do to themselves is virtually endless) you will come across working as a dietitian it may be hard to sympathise let alone empathise or treat them as though their cure and healing are 100% possible.
Having myself been through the mainstream health care model during my recovery from anorexia nervosa I wish my dietitians (nurses, doctors, psychologist insert any other label you wish) had had the insight and ability to treat me with a greater level of compassion. I wish they’d told themselves what I tell myself when I see a client who lives in the grips of something I’ve not experienced; that I may not understand your struggles, but they are valid.
People can suffer greatly from things you do not understand.
2. Sometimes the Most Important Parts are What You Don’t Document in Their Charts
I remember on one of my clinical placements my supervisor wanted me to lug around ward to ward, patient to patient this massive blue folder with instructions on how to treat just about every gastrointestinal problem possible in it.
I remember watching the patient desperately trying to connect, to be heard, to be seen as my supervisor stood flipping through this folder and scribbling notes without even once looking at the woman. I remember thinking there has got to be a better way.
I remember one of my supervisors robotically dolling out the same sheet on carb counting to each and every diabetic patient at the outpatient clinic.
I remember watching more than one person throw the paper in the bin, no understanding of what any of it meant or that it was important. I remember thinking there has got to be a better way.
I remember listening as my supervisor delivered education to an 89-year-old recent widower about eating a high energy, high protein diet to prevent bed sores while he was bedbound post opp. The suggestions predominantly comprised a list of foods he’d never eaten in his life.
I remember watching his eyes glaze over. I remember thinking there has got to be a better way.
I remember the first time I went up to the ward to see a patient on the ward by myself.
I watched her lying with her eyes closed, chest barely rising and falling, nothing but dark, papery skin barely concealing her frail bones.
I’d seen her awake just the day before demanding cigarettes and Coca-Cola.
I’d heard the way they spoke about her back in the office with despair and open contempt.
Contempt for her blatant “refusal” to follow their easy instructions of what was clearly “best for her”.
She died while I was working at that hospital.
It dawned on me even back when I was just on placement and not yet working with my own clients that if I wanted to make a difference (and boy, did I ever) I had to work with the person in front of me, not generalisations.
Sometimes the most important thing you can learn about a client is not where they sit on Bristol stool chart that day, not their PRN list, not their HBA1c history, not whether or not they’re tolerating the EEN yet and not their potassium or serum ferritin status but what is in their heart.
Their memories, their hopes and dreams, how they lived and loved.
Who they are.
If you take the moment to see them as they are only then can you ever hope to help them be anything more.
3. You Will Save Lives
You will change lives daily and you will save lives more often than you may ever know.
Perhaps because you get someone’s total parenteral or enteral nutrition calculation right, you help the cancer patient avoid nutritional deficiencies and have enough energy on board that their body can endure and repair from the chemotherapy, you help the post operation client eat the protein and energy they need to heal in a way that prevents them getting that infection they may otherwise have not have been able to fight off, you help the diabetic control their blood glucose levels and avoid a heart attack or stroke later in life, you help the pregnant woman with an eating disorder nourish herself and her growing baby and prevent a miscarriage and sometimes you save a life just because you listened.
If you become a dietitian, you will save lives.
The caveat of course is that you won’t save them all and just a couple of weeks ago I had a poignant reminder of this when I answered the phone call from the GP that a common client had passed.
Do your job well and you will save lives, but not all of them.
Be prepared for both and know that it is always a privilege to have been a part of their lives.
Main Takeaways
There are some things you really can learn through a textbook and there are others you can only learn through experience.
What it truly means to work in healthcare is one of those things which can only be fully understood through experience.
If you are planning on entering the dietetics profession, it is my wish for you that on top of all you learnt or are yet to learn at uni that you take on board these additional 3 things I’ve shared with you here and more than this I hope you go out and enter each and every day with curiosity.
I hope you nurture an open curiosity to discover and grow your own realisations because by choosing to enter a field like dietetics you choose the option for lifelong learning.
Happy exploring this wonderful profession, this wonderful life!
With My Whole Heart I Trust You Found this Information Useful and Inspiring.
Become Great. Live Great.
Bonnie.
