Vicki Blake is an alumna of PG Dip Dietetics, graduating in 2018. She now works as a Clinical Lead Dietitian for Clinical Care at Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust. In this blog, she explains what her job involves and how her course helped her get there.

Course: PG Dip Dietetics 

Tell us a bit about yourself and what you’ve been doing since you graduated?

I started on the PG Dip Dietetics course in 2016 after completing an undergraduate degree in Sports and Exercise Science at the University of Essex. Throughout my time at school, I was fascinated with human biology, and my undergraduate degree provided the opportunity to see how this applied in the elite sport setting. I particularly enjoyed the nutrition modules and it was here I was first introduced to the role of a Dietitian.  Alongside my degree I volunteered at a food bank and a lunch club, which gave me an insight into the challenges faced by those in food poverty. I really enjoyed speaking with service users, talking to them about food and supporting them at such a challenging time. It was there that I finally decided that I wanted to become a Dietitian.

Three years later, I moved to Leeds to start my dietetic course and since then I have never really left! It has now been six years since I qualified, which I have spent working in the NHS, developing my dietetic skills across acute medicine and surgery. My work mostly covers inpatient care seeing patients that require nutritional support through diet and nutritional supplements, enterally (with a feeding tube) or parenterally (with specialist IV nutrition that is delivered via the blood stream). I offer my expertise to support patients to improve their quality of life, achieve their own nutritional goals and also improve symptoms associated with their medical conditions.

Tell us a bit more about your current role and why it’s amazing?

For the last three years, I have worked as the Clinical Lead Dietitian for Critical Care at The Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust. Half of my week is spent in the clinical setting, completing nutritional assessments and reviews for patients on the Intensive Care unit and Burns unit. I enjoy the complexity that these patient groups can bring; it requires me to utilise critical thinking and draw upon my knowledge of anatomy and physiology to support the patient to maintain or improve their nutritional status. As someone who really likes processing data in a practical setting this environment naturally plays to my strengths. I work with a fantastic multidisciplinary team and every day brings the opportunity to learn something new.

The remaining half of my week is a mixture of supporting our acute dietetic team in the daily running of our operations, and also leading the student training for our dietetic department. It is a very varied role and most certainly keeps me on my toes!

I love my job and couldn’t imagine doing anything else. The best part of this role is providing opportunities for colleagues and student learners to flourish in our workplace. Working in healthcare requires resilience at times and I always want to make sure that everyone in our team is supported through these challenges. It is so important to celebrate our successes and work in an environment where we are happy and enthusiastic about coming to work.

How did your course at Leeds Beckett help you get to where you are today?

My dietetics course gave me self-confidence and I think that is the most vital skill I gained in my whole time at Leeds Beckett. The three placements on the course were key to my development, letting me get stuck in and realise that I was able to perform the key skills needed to be a dietitian. I have always been an observer and I can be quiet and shy in unfamiliar environments, so this did come as a pleasant surprise!

My final placement was at the Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS trust, who then offered me my first job after graduation. We’ve come somewhat full circle now as I get to lead on the hiring of new staff members, which is quite often our previous students. The fact that we get students wanting to come back to work with us, reassures me that we provide a positive work environment and run a really good student programme which has given them the necessary skills to succeed in their early career.

What support or opportunities did you receive at Leeds Beckett that have helped shaped your career? 

The academic team at the university were fantastic, and their lectures were always very engaging.  The lectures had the right balance between providing information to improve our knowledge but also putting this into practice in case studies and problem-based learning. As part of our course, we had access to the clinical skills suite which offered opportunities for recorded communication skills practice with other student dietitians. Arguably the most important skill for a dietitian is their ability to communicate. These observed sessions provided the opportunity to develop this by watching myself back on the recordings to analyse my own body language and mannerisms whilst talking to others, which in turn enabled me to refine these areas before seeing patients. It was a challenge and even embarrassing to watch recordings of myself, but on reflection I can now see its importance.

I had a major surgery the summer prior to starting my postgraduate degree which meant I had some physical health needs whilst at university. My tutor was really supportive and signposted me to access crucial support services which enabled me to meet the demands of the dietetic course. The university disability team were very helpful in creating an individualised care plan to support me through exams and whilst on placement. I was able to delay my first placement which at the time was daunting, but in the long run, worked out much better for me. I was very grateful for their help, and it really benefitted me during my time at university. 

I was also very fortunate to have a wonderful friendship group whilst studying, mostly of other student Dietitians. Postgrad dietetics felt really intense at times, but having a strong support network made the situation much more manageable. I’m fortunate to still keep in touch with some of them today and it’s great to see them all excelling in their own careers.

Can you tell us about a project, piece of work or experience from university that you’re proud of? 

I was really proud of myself after successfully completing my second placement. The placement was 13 weeks long, based in an acute hospital. I wasn’t familiar with this environment so naturally I had some anxieties prior to starting with them. I swiftly developed on this placement and had really positive feedback from my supervising team, which boosted my confidence and started to shape my career as a dietitian. This confirmed to me that I had chosen the correct career path and inspired me to push through my exams and final placement.

What would you say to someone considering studying your course?

Dietetics offers a whole host of opportunities to work with people of all ages, and across many different disease states. It’s not just about putting people on diets – in fact, in the six years I’ve worked in my career, I’ve never once provided a diet plan!

What’s next for you?

I’m content with the clinical element of my role at the moment so I will continue to build on my knowledge, mostly in the areas of nutrition in critical care and burns. I’m hoping to be able to start auditing areas of clinical practice against European Nutrition and Dietetic guidelines to increase the nutrition standards within our Critical Care Unit.

My next area of focus will be in my non-clinical work, concentrating on continuing to develop and grow the team than we currently have. I’m currently working on business cases to support developing more specialist dietetic posts in our department. We are also really keen to expand our student education team so I’m hoping the next couple of years will provide the capacity for this. We can then make the opportunities on our student placements even better than they currently are.