Imagine that you are a clinical nutrition assistant working at a local hospital under the supervision of a Registered Dietitian (RD). Overnight, a 74-year-old male patient was admitted to the hospital and needs to be fully assessed for any nutritional risks (in accordance with hospital/medical nutrition care laws). The hospitals initial nutritional screening protocol identified that the patient may be at nutrition risk, due to a high risk admitting diagnosis. The admitting physician suspects that the patient has suffered a heart attack; however the full cardiac consult results are not yet showing in the computer. Furthermore, the patient has recently moved here to the U.S. from a foreign country within the past year so that his daughter can help care for him due to his declining health. The entire family speaks very little English. The patients cultural background is significant because the culture may not place much influence on western-style healthcare practices. The patients expression of his culture needs to be examined further. The nurses notes reveal that the daughter does not know how much her father weighs, but she suspects that he has gained weight since her mother passed away a year ago. Your assignment from the supervising RD is to examine the patients complete cultural, social, medical, and nutritional background so that the next steps of the Nutrition Care Process can be instituted. Upon your initial investigation within the hospitals electronic medical records system, you notice that there is no height or weight listed for the patient. The diet order reads: NPO (nothing by mouth) and they are awaiting more lab results for various tests related to hydration and kidney function. His cardiac enzyme lab work indicates that he suffered a Myocardial Infarction (MI). The MD notes confirm a heart attack diagnosis and the MD also noted that the patient appears to be morbidly obese.

Assignment: Clinical Nutrition Assistant

Assignment: Clinical Nutrition Assistant

His medications include: a blood pressure medication, a diuretic, and a cholesterol-lowering drug.
1.Imagine that you have to complete this demographic/cultural background patient research for your supervisor within the next couple of hours. Record and describe this fictional patients cultural background information by listing the answers to certain questions (translator may be requested in hospitals). Record observations, human expressions, and any other unique characteristics about the patients culture or background that may impact his ability to adhere to any type of medical nutrition therapy, nutrition education, or dietary restrictions. (You may use information created in the Unit 6 Discussion Board here).
2.The patient and daughter are unaware of the patients current height and weight. His hospital bed unfortunately does not have a built-in weight scale. The patient is unable to stand upright due to his medical condition. Therefore, list and describe one alternative way to estimate height (stature) and one alternative way to estimate a persons weight that is covered in Chapter 7 of the textbook. (Refer to page 254 for general ideas and Tables 7.1, 7.3, and 7.4.)
3.Based on your knowledge of the patients cultural background as well as your evaluation and observations of your current interactions with the patient and daughter, do you believe the patient will comply with the MD suggesting a strict, very low calorie (10001200 calories), low fat, low cholesterol, and low salt diet, due to the heart attack/cardiac consultation results and morbidly obese appearance?

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.