A DAY IN THE LIFE OF . . .
A ROTATIONAL BAND 6 DIETITIAN Sophie Johnston Registered Dietitian Salford Royal Foundation Trust Sophie has worked as a Rotational Dietitian in a variety of clinical areas at Salford Royal Hospital since 2015. She has a particular interest in stroke medicine and enjoys service development.
For the past year, I have been working as a Rotational Band 6 Dietitian at Salford Royal Foundation Trust. This has involved working within the gastro, community, neuro and renal teams, with quick transition between each role. This has required me to be adaptable and open to new clinical areas and ways of working, which at times has been challenging. However, I feel that it has given me invaluable experience and ultimately made me a more holistic practitioner. My article here is more of an overview of the work I do rather than 'a day in the life', as all my days have been so variable depending on each rotation. I wanted to write this as an encouragement for others to try rotational working beyond a Band 5 level. OVERVIEW OF ROTATIONS
I initially worked within the surgical gastro team which mainly involved managing the ward lists and seeing patients post upper and lower gastro intestinal surgery. I also had the opportunity to support the team on the medical gastro wards. This broadened my clinical knowledge and enabled me to see more complex patients, with support from experienced team members. I have since come across such patients in the community, for example, those with high output stomas or inflammatory bowel disease, and felt confident in managing multiple co-morbidities. Due to departmental need, I rotated into the community team within a few months. I had to adapt quickly to the different style of working, additional systems used and a new team. I worked with patients with a variety of medical conditions and oral and enteral nutritional needs in their own homes, nursing homes and in clinics. This was a real step out of my comfort zone, as all of my experience since graduating had been acute based. Although I was only in the community team for a few months, I feel that this time supported me in becoming a more holistic practitioner 46
www.NHDmag.com May 2018 - Issue 134
with the ability to develop realistic, patient-centred care plans for home. I am now much more aware of the community services available to my patients and our responsibility for appropriate prescribing in the NHS, which I incorporate into discharge plans. I also found this experience useful to build professional relationships and support team working across acute to community. I subsequently moved to the neuro team, leading on stroke and providing cross cover with trauma, neurology, neuro-oncology and neurovascular patients. This was an area I had enjoyed working in as a Band 5, so I welcomed the challenge of a step up to a Band 6 level, seeing patients from high dependency up until rehab. During this time, I was able to deliver some staff education sessions, which is something I look forward to building on in the future. Since November, I have been working in the renal team. This has been my longest rotation so far and I have appreciated having the chance to settle into a different clinical area and team. My role involves covering the renal, urology and medical high dependency wards, advanced kidney care clinic, young adult clinic and a satellite dialysis unit in Wigan. I work with patients with varying levels of acute and chronic kidney disease, pre and post commencing dialysis, and those who opt for conservative care. I also contribute to regular advanced kidney care and bone mineral management multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings.