Hello everyone! My name is Morgan Nishisaka and am part of region 12. I am currently in my foodservice rotation in Honolulu. This rotation has taught me so much about foodservice in a hospital from inpatient to retail to catering events that they put on for the hospital. So far, I got to be a part of helping plate meals for a staff-wide event to celebrate King Kamehameha IV’s birthday and help in retail with the marketing, costing and production of chocolate covered strawberries to be sold for Valentine’s Day. I didn’t think that I would like foodservice as much as I do. Every day is different and that’s what makes it exciting! Before this rotation, I was in my clinical rotation at the same hospital. During my clinical rotation, I got experience at a level 1 trauma hospital, a community hospital and even got to travel to the Big Island to see what a rural hospital was like. These experiences have allowed me to be able to see what it would be like to be a dietitian in various hospital settings. One cool thing that I got to experience was seeing someone get extubated! My clinical rotation also allowed me to shadow many wonderful dietitians that taught me many great things and allowed me to thrive in my clinical rotation.
To future dietetic interns, my advice is to keep your mind open! You never know what you’ll enjoy and what might not be your favorite until you try it out, and keeping an open mind can help you find things that you never knew you’d enjoy. I found out I love foodservice a lot more than I thought that I would. Another piece of advice that I was told was to do something every day. That phrase will get repeated a lot during orientation and personally I didn’t understand the emphasis on it but looking back, I now understand. Doing something small very day helps prevent the projects from piling up and keeps everything at a decent workload!
