A HANDY REFERENCE

Students in the College of Health and Nursing Sciences' Dietetic Internship Program now have personal assistants to help them in their on-the-job clinical experience.

They're not the kind of personal assistants who hold the interns' feet while they exercise or pick up their laundry. Instead, they're the kind that do hematological calculations and nutritional research at a patient's bedside.

Personal digital assistants (PDAs), in the form of Palm Pilot hand-held electronic devices, now are a requirement for students in the program, a postbaccalaureate internship that prepares participants to earn their credentials as registered dietitians. The PDAs are not the only high-tech aspect of the program, which operates in a distance-learning format that allows interns to do their supervised clinical work anywhere in the country, while taking courses, completing written assignments and checking in with UD faculty via the Internet. (See related article, below.)

The PDAs, which come to the students with NutritionRx software installed, were introduced by the program during the 2002-03 school year, as a result of a grant from the Marmot Foundation. That pilot project, which involved 32 interns in 10 states, showed the value of the devices in improving student learning, according to Ann Rucinski, director of the dietetic internship and an instructor in health, nutrition and exercise sciences.

Rucinski, who coauthored the grant proposal that funded the pilot project, says she wouldn't be without her own PDA. "It's a great tool," she says. "It's become my right arm."

Rucinski says she and Charlene Hamilton, who at the time was a professor and the internship director and now is retired, applied for the grant because of "the reputation UD has for being a leader in technology." They also were convinced that learning to use the devices on the job would make the internship more efficient and valuable, Rucinski says.

Students were given PDAs and software to use in hospitals, long-term care facilities, public health settings, homes, clinics and food services.

The software allows on-the-spot calculations for nutritional supplements for patients with specific injuries, illnesses and lifestyle factors. It can be used for such tasks as conducting pediatric nutrition assessments, calculating the correct amount of oral supplements and nutritional support for patients who are being tube-fed or fed intravenously and creating meal plans for patients with diabetes and renal failure.

Students were given assignments throughout their internships that had to be done with the PDAs. After analyzing the results, Rucinski says the researchers found that "interns benefited from utilizing PDAs, which enhanced their internship experiences."

Samantha Kunst, CHNS '03M, who wrote her master's degree thesis on the pilot project, says most interns found the device useful, even though some did not use all the available features, such as e-mail and Internet capability. In general, she says, the interns used the PDAs extensively to keep track of their schedules and other daily organizational matters, as well as using the nutrition software as a kind of portable reference book.

"If they were with a client and wanted to check on a particular drug interaction, for example, they could do it right at the bedside," Kunst says. "They found it much more efficient than having to look something up and get back to the client later. And, of course, it just isn't practical to carry all your reference material around with you."

Christine Meissner, who completed her internship during the pilot project and now works as a registered dietitian in a New Jersey rehabilitation center, calls the PDA "clinically invaluable." She says she continues to use the device on the job, relying on its "extensive database" for quick access to such topics as ideal body weight ranges, pharmaceutical information and the nutritional content of various foods.

"I use my Palm Pilot for daily patient assessment," Meissner says. "When a client needs information, it is at my fingertips."

Meissner, who enrolled in the dietetics internship as a second career, says she chose the University because of its high-tech approach, including the Palm Pilot project.

"I was looking for something to enhance my learning experience," she says. "I am very satisfied to have selected UD."

--Barbara Garrison