I spent one week with the renal dietitian at the VA. I interviewed patients while they were receiving hemodialysis treatments and assessed a few inpatients. Hemodialysis is a treatment for end stage renal disease (kidney failure), in which blood is removed from the body, filtered through an artificial kidney, and then the clean blood is returned to the body. Treatment needs to be done three days a week and takes four hours each time. The kidney has many functions like getting rid of the body's excess waste products and fluids, regulating fluids, chemicals, blood pressure, and stimulating the production of red blood cells.
The dietitian plays an important role because patients have to be on restricted diets. Kidney failure patients have increased protein needs and its necessary to restrict their potassium, phosphorus, and sodium. These values show up on their lab results. The diet gets complicated for the patient when they also have diabetes. There are about 60 patients that come to the VA hemodialysis unit every day. The dietitian is required to see every patient once a month.
Once again, I had a great time talking with patients and hearing their stories. I even like talking to the grumpy ones, they were frustrating and challenging because they eat whatever they want and just don't care.
Thursday afternoon we had class on Biomedical Ethics--dealing with feeding and hydration at the end of life. It was very interesting. I found out my case study presentation date...June 9th...guess what I'm doing this weekend!
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| 5/20/11--Orange Stormy Sky |
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