The Sanford Call Center takes phone calls from patients at the Sanford hospitals in Fargo, Bismarck, and Bemidji. As a food service assistant, my main job includes taking diet orders over the phone and ensuring that food requests comply with the patient's specific diet.

Through working at Sanford, I've had the opportunity to work with patients on many different diets and combinations of restrictions, some of which include diabetic, renal, heart healthy, different IDDSI, and fluid restricted diets. Working with a diverse group of patients has given me knowledge on foods that I can recommend to patients on a specialized diet, especially because many patients don't know which foods they're allowed to have. In addition, I've become familiar with EPIC charting software as it comes to searching pertinent dietary information about patients, and modifying information on record when someone on the care team adds a diet order, allergy, or restriction to a patient's file.

I was hired as a nutrition intern for the Mill City Farmers Market for the summer and fall of 2020. In this role, I helped create over ten recipes to be published on the market's website. I also completed a self-directed community engagement project where I created three budget-friendly shopping lists for each month of the market season with corresponding recipe ideas. My budgeted lists were priced at $20 to reflect the needs of our customers who utilize SNAP benefits, and at $50 for customers looking to purchase more products. The main goal of the project was to reach low income shoppers by making local shopping affordable and healthy cooking more accessible.

I created a shopping list handout to distribute to shoppers as they came into the market, and social media content to reach online audiences. Examples are linked below.

Interns met with local chefs, healthcare professionals, and dietitians each week of the summer for conversations and question and answer sessions. We also spent meetings discussing articles about diversity at farmers markets, and had book discussions related to food and nutrition. As a team, we were always thinking about ways to make the market more equitable and accessible to all Minneapolis residents.

September Handout

August Social Media Content

Budgeted Shopping Blog Post

I've worked at Untiedt's garden center and local produce stand for the last five summers. Through working at Untiedt's, I've had opportunities to tour our local farm which allowed me to learn about sustainable agriculture, fair working conditions, the growing seasons of different crops, and the nutritional (and taste) differences between locally grown and grocery store produce.

In my role at the garden center, I spent a lot of time speaking to customers about recipe ideas for different produce items and explaining the growing methods of each crop. I also promoted our CSA (community supported agriculture) program where members received a box of fresh produce each week from our farm. Through promoting CSA shares, I was encouraging customers to eat locally grown fruits and vegetables throughout the summer and fall.

As a junior, I went to FNCE in the fall of 2019 in Philadelphia where I was able to learn about relevant nutrition topics outside of the traditional classroom setting. Some of the presentations I found most interesting included sessions about prescribing exercise in eating disorder treatment plans, diversity in the dietetics profession, and understanding the role of obesity in eating disorder identification and treatment.

I attended the NDAND (North Dakota Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics) conference in the spring of 2020. At this conference, I listened to many different nutrition presentations including sessions on the importance of breastfeeding, applying weight-neutral approaches in clinical settings, orthorexia, and a discussion on the myths and benefits of soy. In addition, I presented a poster on a literature review of the association between weight loss and the microbiome.