Acute Care and Critical Care RD

1. Post acute care dietitians deal with patients who have been hospitalized recently due to

traumatic injury, urgent medical conditions, severe episodes of illness, and other similar

short term stays. Their main responsibilities include assessing a patient’s nutritional

status by charting it on medical records, prioritizing which patients get seen first,

collaborating with other members of the hospital's ICU team to deliver nutrition

recommendations to help the patient recover. Since this is acute care, they’ll be seeing

higher patient turnover compared to an RD in long term care or oncology.

2. Tri City Medical Center is a hospital in Oceanside, California that focuses on acute care.

They specialize in orthopedics, cardiovascular, and spinal services, as well as robotic

surgery, cancer care, and emergency services. They also function as a type 3 NICU

which means they can provide sustained life support, care for infants of any size and

maturity, and perform pediatric surgery. There are 26 beds in the ICU, and 60 more beds

in the telemetry department to monitor cardiac status. On their ICU team, they only have

1 full time RD along with 2 part time.

3. On the ICU team at Tri City Medical Center, they’ll typically work with a doctor, RN,

respiratory therapist, speech therapist, pharmacist, and a physical therapist. The RD will

provide nutrition recommendations to the physicians. Speech therapists assess

swallowing functions of the patient and provide food texture recommendations. The

pharmacist prescribes drugs to the patient which may alter absorption of certain

micronutrients.

4. Being an acute care RD, she mentioned that she sees a high patient turnover.

Compared to other fields in dietetics, this can be very fast paced. She won’t be forming

the same relationships with patients who stay longer such as in oncology, but it also can

be less emotionally taxing since she’ll be able to see more of her patients get better.

Although shifts depend on the facility, she works 4 10 hour shifts a week which can be
 nice due to the extra day off. Once she clocks out she also doesn’t have to think about

work until the next time she comes back so it allows more time to relax and unwind. I

actually wouldn’t mind working in acute care since I do get to see many of the patients

get better. Being around a lot of patients that are suffering from terminal illnesses may be

a bit too depressing for me.

References

Atrium Health Floyd. Levels of Neonatal Care. Atrium Health Floyd Website.
https://www.floyd.org/medical-services/maternity/NICU/Pages/Levels-of-Neonatal-care.aspx
Accessed March 22, 2022

Tri-City Medical Center. Intensive Vare. Tri-City Medical Care Website.

https://www.tricitymed.org/medical-services/intensive-care/. Accessed March 22, 2022