Family & Friend Update!

1. Finished the Texas State University dietetic internship!

What a year.

One year ago last month I arrived in Texas to start the dietetic internship. I was one of the lucky 50% nationally who was placed in an internship, thanks to Dr. Friedman, an amazing woman and my dietetic internship director whom I can only speculate chose me out of the stack because of my natural health perspective. My own state, Alaska, did not choose me, which I took as a sign that my travels are far from being over before I settle down!

The 10 month internship was absolutely inspiring and provided me with a wide variety of experiences throughout central Texas, from Austin to San Antonio. I am eternally grateful to all my preceptors for making this experience possible and for nurturing my passion for nutrition!

I only cried a couple of times. It wasn't all roses. I was broke and slipping further and further into debt, working 32 hours a week unpaid with graduate classes taking up my free time with assignments and lectures. I struggled with being true to myself and my beliefs while also being respectful to my preceptors and instructors. Most of the time successful, but on a couple of occasions bringing me much inner turmoil that inspired several of my previous blog postings.

Now with it behind me, I look back and genuinely smile. I jumped through every hoop placed in front of me and the pay off is tremendous. I learned so much and the completion of the internship allowed me to sit for my exam to become a registered dietitian and to pursue my dreams of spreading the word of natural health through whole foods within the folds of mainstream "accepted" nutrition professionals.

2. Passed the Exam for Registered Dietitians!

Nothing motivates you for passing an exam like having a job that hired you contingent on the passing of that exam and having your internship director tell you that there would be a special place of hate in her heart for you forever if you did not pass it.

Well I passed it!! (Thank goodness...) And you know what, it really wasn't too bad! Besides the fact that the spectrum of the exam ranged from what temperature to cook a roast, to dishwashing chemicals, to management theory, to diet prescriptions for random disease states... It was actually quite reasonable.

Good luck to all my classmates who are studying for the exam as I write!! You will rock it.

3. New job at a hospital in San Antonio, Texas!

There were five very different job directions I could have gone after the internship. San Marcos WIC had a community dietitian position offered to me that would have provided me the opportunity to talk about health and nutrition to mothers and to support breastfeeding in a population with notoriously low breastfeeding rates.

I was also offered a job at a long-term care facility in New Braunfels, a little town that I just love in the hill country and an opportunity to work with some lovely, very big hearted people.

I considered pursing the job at the San Antonio food bank; a job that would entail teaching nutrition classes to youngsters and would have been a very fun and creative job in the community!

And finally, I considered pursuing a job with Meals and Wheels and More in Austin, which honestly would have been the most perfect job for me but I couldn't take the gamble of turning down a full-time job with benefits for a part-time job that I may not have been offered if I interviewed for it.

I chose the hospital job at the hospital because I felt that it was the best career move and because the people I would be working with struck me as able to provide a very nurturing and supportive environment to get my dietitian feet wet in. Also - it is a teaching hospital, which in my mind is the only way to go because there is a spectacular level of collaboration between professionals in patient care that you won't find very often in a traditional health care setting.

I am looking forward to learning all about what can go wrong with the human body, to better understand what really motivates people to treat their bodies well!

This is only the beginning...

I love you Juneau, but leaving to pursue a career in nutrition was the best thing I have ever done for myself. With my education and experiences, I hope to lead a fulfilling life by helping others in their nutritious endeavors!