Kent State Interns

Politics isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but if you are interested in how government policy and the food industry affect the quality and safety of our food supply you should check out the “Food Politics” web page by Marion Nestle (no relation to Nestle Co.) a professor of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York University. This site is a good place to check in on what’s happening in government food policy or get general information about any thing from GMO food labeling to basic information on calorie consumption. The URL is http://www.foodpolitics.com   J.Y.

Hello everyone, I came across an article that discusses five workplace trends in 2012 .  This article is actually from December of 2011, but I think it is interesting to look back on the year and see how accurate the trends turned out to be.  The trends that were discussed in this article were for the most part very accurate and all of these trends have a huge effect on management and leadership.  I'm interested to see where 2013 will take us.  For a longer yet great read, check out  Sodexo Workplace Trend Report .  I have been working with Sodexo at my internship rotation site and it has been a great experience.    Brian W.

So I found a couple of interesting articles that I thought could be applicable to us. The first one I found was trends for consumers....though we are not necessarily in the business world, I still think this is important for us on how to reach patients/clients.  In the managerial role I think keeping up on trends is ESSENTIAL!  Therefore, it is always important to be searching.  I thought #5 on the list, app-designs, was a good one because I already see so many nutrition apps and we can use these to our advantage.  For example, at my summer rotation we used the myfitnesspal app with out patients for the weight loss classes and we also used the nestle app for tube feeds and professional purposes.  Just something to take a look at! Consumer trends! This second article isn't necessarily management-related, but I still found it interesting.  This is from a blog and it talks about cost and rational/responsible healthcare. Rational health care Enjoy ...

I'm always on the lookout for new books to help in my career development. Although this is not specific to nutrition and dietetics, I thought it would be a good thing to share, more generally related to business and management.  Whether you want to go into business for yourself or work for a company, reading business and entrepreneurial books can be beneficial to your career as an RD.  Even though these books all relate somehow to "business", they are not your traditional "business or business planning" books.  They dig deeper into what you want for your personal and working life, your values, and your motivation.  I believe this is also what we've tried to discover throughout our internship program. The books in this list vary by topic and approach yet they are all relevant to management and leadership.  Hey, there's the most current edition of "The Leadership Challenge"! Best Biz Books of 2012 When you finally have a chance to take up s...

 I recently read an article titled "Incorporation of continuous quality improvement in a hospital dietary department's quality management program", which applies continuous quality improvement (CQI) to evaluating and enhancing a hospital's program.  Though it is dated from 1994, the steps of CQI and the problems that it addresses (on time tray delivery) are still relevant today. I first learned of CQI in our Foodservice Management class last year, and have included a brief outline along with its value - keep it in mind while reading the article, and in management roles in the future! CQI: Continuous Quality Improvement – an analytical decision making tool used to evaluate performance Steps of CQI: 1.      Problem Statement 2.      Current situation/Goal 3.      Analyze problem 4.      Action plan 5.      Results 6.      Start over ...

In our management class this semester, we discussed employee motivation.  In this video, Dr. Patrick Dixon, author of Building a Better Business, presents at a conference about increasing employee motivation at work.  His main point is that what motivates people and makes them passionate about their job are challenges, team work, shared vision, family, friends and community and not profits and excel spreadsheets.  He's a great motivational speaker! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA-ifiDuvls -KC

I found a great, short article written on how to avoid the “office politics” from Leading Today . In Avoiding Office Politics:How to advance your career without bullying or boot-licking", t he author, Jeff Mowatt, discusses how a lot of the time it is not the “external customers” that make the job the stressful, it’s really the “internal customers” that do. These “internal customers” include co-workers, subordinates, and supervisors. It is the “internal customers” and the “office politics” that make the job not as enjoyable. This is a great piece to read “if you’re not into playing politics, if you don’t want to suck-up to supervisors, if you don’t want to step on others to climb the ladder, here are a few questions and answers they won’t tell you in the company manual”. P.G.