Dietary aid?

[zinciest]

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A nearby hospital is hiring dietary aids. What do you think this job entails? Do you think it's probably someone who carries food up to patients? Would it count as clinical experience if that is what it is?

Thank you

 

[Algophiliac]

Google is God.

Dietary aides may perform the following tasks:

• discuss the dietary needs of patients with health care team members
• interview patients to discuss food preferences
• assist in the planning of menus for patients
• make sure food is hygienically and correctly prepared and attractively presented
• maintain diet records
• develop a nutrition care plan in consultation with dietitians
• assist in the training of staff involved in the preparation and serving of meals for patients with particular diets
• use computers for data entry and retrieval.

This definitely counts as clinical experience, since you'd be getting ridiculous quantities of patient interaction!

 

[FlowLimited]

Maybe you should call the hospital and ask what the job entails. That'd be a lot more useful than asking a bunch of pre-meds to make guesses.

My guess (since you're asking): dietary aide is probably the fancy title for that person who pushes the tray cart through the hospital dropping off meals.

 

[LizzyM]

Google is God.

Dietary aides may perform the following tasks:

• discuss the dietary needs of patients with health care team members

• 
  
  The nurse will tell you that the newly admitted patient needs a low sodium, mechanical soft tray. You'll make up a tray of tasteless mushy food.
  

  [*] interview patients to discuss food preferences

  You will read a menu aloud and circle the patient's choices.
  

  [*] assist in the planning of menus for patients

  don't bother interviewing the patients who can't speak, just circle the menu items you think that would suit them.
  

  [*] make sure food is hygienically and correctly prepared and attractively presented

  
  You make pans of jello. Later you work on an assembly line placing dishes of jello or canned fruit on each tray as specified on the paper menu displayed on the tray.
  

  [*] maintain diet records

  You add up how many dishes of canned fruit you served today and keep a record for inventory control.
  

  [*] develop a nutrition care plan in consultation with dietitians

  
  You ask the dietitian what you can give to the patient on the low fat, low cholesterol, low sodium, high fiber, soft, 1200 calorie ADA, low potassium, low protein diet.
  

  [*] assist in the training of staff involved in the preparation and serving of meals for patients with particular diets

  You train the new diet aide on how to tell the difference between sugar free and regular jello on the assembly line.
  

  [*] use computers for data entry and retrieval.

  Of course.

This definitely counts as clinical experience, since you'd be getting ridiculous quantities of patient interaction!

You get very little patient interaction. If you need a paying job, fine but don't do this because you need clinical experience. You may smell patients but mostly you'll be smelling pureed cauliflower.

And how do I know? Because I worked as a diet aide one summer when I was in college.

 

[MossPoh]

It obviously left a positive impression on you too. 😉

 

[wanderer]

It sounds like you will get very little patient interaction (maybe 2 minutes a patient when they actually call you). Don't do it for the "experience."

 

[bunnity]

Eh, at my hospital I'd say the dietary aides got a decent amount of patient interaction. There was a menu just like in a restaurant (and it had a lot more than jello on it) and many of the patients needed help reading through and picking what they wanted to eat the next day. That could easily entail 15 minutes with particular patients every day. Then once the food actually got delivered a lot of the patients needed help getting their table set up, getting pop cans opened, putting the milk in their coffee, etc. The dietary aides would often "walk in" on a doctor-patient conversation, or a mobile test like the ones I was running, and get little glimpses of what goes on day to day in a hospital.

So I think it would be helpful in terms of spending time with patients - on about the same level that volunteering to play board games or whatever with patients would be. You wouldn't see much actual medicine occurring, but you would get a sense of all the different things going on in a hospital and get to see all the different wards every day. Now I'm not really sure with what exactly the OP is wanting out of this experience or what med schools are looking for... vet experience is a lot more hands-on because we don't have the same laws restricting us. But I hope I gave a good description of what the job would be like in my particular hospital that I worked at.

Another benefit that I think is important is that it is easier to get "better" jobs in a hospital if you're already in the system, both logistically and because you get to meet the right people and know who's hiring (there is a lot of elevator conversation in hospitals). So this job could lead to a more advanced or clinical one.

Oh, and the dietary aide is the ONLY person the patient gets excited to see, I can tell you that. Yes, they usually want to see the dietary person with their food much more than they want to see the doctor.