In a special series, reporter Marelle Reid chats with the people who make RCH run.
This is her first report.
Julia Chen is a registered dietician who has been working in the clinical nutrition department at RCH for the past two years. The Record caught up with Chen this week to find out what it's like for a dietician on the wards.
Can you describe your role?
Basically, my role at the hospital is to identify malnutrition, optimizing the nutritional status of patients in the hospital. We do that by trying to optimize what they eat here at the hospital, monitoring their clinical status . we also do nutrition support, which is if they're not able to eat orally, we do tube feeding.
We do also discharge planning in terms of education prior to discharge for long-term nutritional recommendations. So we deal with the acute setting, but also long-term discharge planning as well.
What's the most interesting thing about your job?
I think, for me, the first thing would be just interacting with a lot of different people - that keeps my day super interesting, the different types of personalities; even the staff here. The other side of it is that RCH is a pretty big facility for Fraser Health, and we get a lot of very sick patients, acute cases, and that, clinically, is very interesting.
Something you wish you could change about your job?
I enjoy working with the staff and the patients here.
Everything is fantastic, but for sure, sometimes the workload can be a little bit heavy.
Is there one myth you'd like to dispel about your job?
I think when people think about dieticians just in general they think, if they're eating a lot of candy or something around Christmastime, they think, "Oh, I can't eat that in front of the dietician." We enjoy our food, and for sure we enjoy our treats and stuff, but we don't just deal with the healthy eating part of that in the hospital, we do a lot with people not eating well and malnutrition.
What's the difference between a nutritionist and a dietician?
As dieticians, we are registered with the College of Dieticians here in B.C. We do have to go through a regulated program. So that involves a university degree, plus a year of internship, and so there are standards to make sure that we qualify and we have to be registered. So, in that sense, the public is protected when they consult a registered dietician. For a nutritionist, on the other hand, someone could just take one nutrition course and they can call themselves a nutritionist. It's basically not regulated.
What did you want to be when you were a kid?
I actually wanted to be a flight attendant. That was my childhood dream. I think it was . because I thought flying around was really cool and getting to visit different places. I think if I didn't get into dietetics, I might have taken that route.
Where did you get your training?
I went to UBC. We have to do about two years of undergrad science pre-requisites and we apply in the second year to get in in the third year, and it's through the faculty of land and food systems. The program is a total of five years, including the pre-requisites.
Do you wear scrubs?
No, we don't. We're one of the few (medical) professions who don't wear scrubs. Sometimes the nurses say, "Oh, we wish we could wear pretty clothes like you guys," but at the same time we're like, "Oh, we wish we could wear scrubs." [email protected]
