PENG Clinical Update Course 2014

The winners of the ‘free place’ competition share their experiences

Bekki Ford

I qualified as a dietitian a ‘few’ (16!) years ago and have always heard that the PENG Clinical Update Course was a good course to do. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, I had never had the opportunity to attend until recently.

I was looking to apply to attend the 2014 course through funding via the NHS Trust I work for when I saw an advert to win a ‘free’ place. Well, I thought: ‘You have to be in it to win it!’ All it took was filling out a form and sending it off. So, I did just that and was lucky enough to win a free place.

I left my husband and two children to fend for themselves (with instructions!) for the week whilst I headed up to Queen Margaret’s University in Edinburgh for the 4-day course. It was wonderful to meet all the different dietitians working in a variety of specialities across the UK. It was also a real treat to have a lie-in every morning but still able to get to lectures for 9am! I can honestly say that it’s been a long time since I have done that!

The course itself was well-organised and jam-packed from the start. As dietitians, we love free things so the goody bag on day 1 was very well received! There was a great mix of lectures and workshops which generated a good amount of discussion about the different practices across all the NHS trusts and I have come away with a list of things to investigate locally. All the tutors and lecturers were very friendly and helpful with any questions and issues and I have made some wonderful new links (especially on day 1 of the course at the welcome dinner).

Attending the PENG course does now mean I have a written project to achieve whilst juggling work, two kids with all their extra-curricular activities, summer holidays and a new dog (eek!). However, I am looking forward to the opportunity and I would thoroughly recommend anyone who is interested to apply to win a free place for next year.

It really is worth it; not only to develop new and consolidate current knowledge but to also develop skills and network links.

Thank you.

Helen James

It was a fantastic opportunity to be offered one of the free places on the PENG Clinical Update Course 2014. I knew I would potentially be moving Trusts this summer and to avoid the financial implications of funding the course allowed me to go ahead and make plans to attend the week in Edinburgh.

Meeting dietitians from around the whole country was a new experience for me, but also a great way to network and build relationships which can be utilised in the future when you’re at work with a difficult patient and need to email someone for their expert advice!

I felt the time at which I attended (3 years post registration) was about the right time to go on the course as it was really important to be able to share and appraise my own department’s practices with other dietitians. We are a small profession and it is vital we learn from each other. I do also feel the course is very suitable for dietitians who have been qualified for much longer, as it’s amazing how much you realise you have forgotten since University!

To be able to take the time out of daily life and focus solely on studying and evidence-based practice was invaluable when we work in an environment which allows very little time for this to happen. Having workshops after each lecture within our tutor groups allowed for us to implement our new knowledge and apply it to real life case studies, which I strongly feel is the key way forward to being confident enough to apply newly learned skills to daily work.

What I found most useful from the course was to hear about the actual evidence-base behind our dietetic practice. For example, it was so interesting to hear how the guidelines for refeeding syndrome and initiating TPN had been developed. Since returning to practice, I have been much more proactive in critically appraising guidelines before automatically changing my practice.

Although the post-course work assignment is a big piece of work, it has really encouraged me to keep up-to-date with emerging research in my area of speciality. I have also been much more confident to undertake an audit and analyse useful nutritional parameters, to help produce dietetic outcomes and prove the worth of having a dietitian as part of the MDT.

I have recently been successful at a job interview and without doubt I feel the PENG course and the skills I learned ultimately helped contribute to my promotion.

If you wish to consolidate your skills, gain academic knowledge in the evidence-base for best practice and be able to produce high quality research and audit results, then this is the course for you! I would also strongly encourage entering the competition for a free place on the course as you could also be one of the lucky winners!

Anna Julian

As a winner of the PENG competition for a free place on the PENG Clinical Update Course, I was asked to write a few words about my experiences. In five words the PENG Clinical Update Course has been clinical, reliable, informative, accessible and gratifying . In 500 words? Well…

Clinical

As a dietitian working in a bustling district general, the days were flying by but I started to feel like sunny campus life was a long time ago. It is very difficult (as a dietitian working in a bustling district general!) to know where to start, and that is where I felt the Update Course was the right fit for me.

The residential week included a mix of lectures and workshop-style sessions, with the opportunity to delve in to the theory, and then discuss it in practical terms. The choice of topics was ideal and it was brilliant to gain knowledge I could go back and immediately put in to action. The sessions on fluid status have led me to be more involved in patients’ fluid management; the coursework and lectures around PN providing support to become more involved in the nutrition support team.

Reliable

The PENG team have worked massively hard to take the Clinical Update Course from a two-day post-graduate weekend to where it is today, and that investment in the cause was clear. With increasing competition for jobs, evidence that you can work to a higher level is valuable, and with 15 masters-level credits from Queen Margaret University to prove your worth, especially with a quality piece of coursework in the portfolio bank. For me the PENG Clinical Update Course has proved to be an investment already.

Accessible

One of my favourite things about the residential week was the opportunity to chat with the tutors. The leaders of the course came from all over the UK, with expertise of different specialisms and experience across acute, community and research settings. Without exception, the tutors were approachable and helpful, allowing you to benefit from their knowledge and ask the questions you wanted to ask. In fact, in hindsight, I definitely did not utilise this aspect enough (clear your inboxes tutors, I am a late reflector).

Informative

In addition to the sessions around the day-to-day practice of the dietitian, it was interesting to look more closely at the evidence for some of the decisions made around the specific guidelines and products we use. For example, immunonutrition is one of those topics I could mumble a couple of words about (..glutamine..) but generally remains on the backburner with the other things that I never quite get to (cleaning the oven, watching Saving Private Ryan). So it was fantastic to debate the latest evidence and take forward some references for further reading.

Gratifying

With constant pressure to see more patients and cover vacancies clinical practice can become frustrating, with opportunities for sharing practice and taking part in CPD rare. To fence off some time and actually leave the office was exhilarating! It is amazing the drive you can get from talking to like-minded people; to learn about practices in ITUs across the country and to hear people who have taken on the battle of the low albumin and won.

Thank you PENG!

Treasa Ody

I applied for a free place the week after returning from maternity leave last year and was delighted to be one of the lucky winners! I felt the course would be the perfect opportunity for me to update and consolidate my knowledge and to increase my confidence after a year away from work and I was not disappointed.

The week was packed full of lectures and workshops led by experienced and knowledgeable dietitians, and their passion for the profession was evident. The lectures were all extremely interesting and thought-provoking, and the tutor-led workshops associated with each topic allowed for plenty of discussion and debate in smaller groups. The entire week was quite informal, the tutors were always available to answer questions and there were numerous opportunities for discussions with them and other course participants.

It was wonderful to meet so many other dietitians from various locations and specialties and to be able to share ideas and compare practice and structures in different hospitals and community settings. The chance to learn from each other and build a network of contacts for support has been really beneficial for both the post-coursework and beyond!

It was a fantastic opportunity to leave the world of work behind for a week and have the time to focus entirely on learning and developing, getting the chance to step back and think about my practice. The course was certainly very inspiring and I left it feeling motivated to improve and advance my own practice and work to a better level, and also to promote the role of dietetics and prove my worth as a key member of the MDT.

The course was very well organised and dealing with both the PENG tutors and Queen Margaret University has been seamless. I would recommend the course to any dietitian working in nutritional support, either in the acute or community setting and would certainly encourage anyone thinking about it to apply for one of the free places.

Jessica Zekavica

I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to attend the PENG course this year. I found the course a great way to share the best practice with others and realise the positive impact we have as a profession on patient outcomes.

This was the first time I had re-visited studying since completing my dietetics degree, and found the experience extremely useful. The lectures were thorough and up-to-date with the latest evidence base and best practice. All the lecturers are practicing dietitians and experts in their field. This allowed for useful discussions after the lecture, and made the information provided all the more relevant. It also gave me a benchmark to compare my own practice against, and consider what I could incorporate in to my practice or do differently. Due to the wide range of lectures presented, PENG also gave me an opportunity to update my knowledge in areas of dietetics that I no longer practice every day. I feel that this has enabled me to become more of a rounded practitioner- something that is not always achieved when attending specialist study days.

As a practical learner I found the workshops particularly useful. These helped consolidate what had been learnt and discuss as a group the practicalities of applying new methods in both acute and community settings. The anthropometrics practical made me re-consider my opinions and previous thoughts on the viability of using alternative methods to monitor patients. As a practitioner, PENG has prompted me to endeavour to be less reliant on weights for monitoring by being more considered with what my goals are and how I will measure them. It is absolutely essential we use appropriate anthropometric methods to monitor our patients, bearing in mind their importance on outcome measures and what this means for the provision of future dietetic services.

The critical appraisal aspect of the course was perhaps the most useful tool that PENG provided me with. It made me consider whether, as practitioners, we are continually looking at the evidence-base, but using other people’s conclusions to drive our practice. Having the lecture and workshop on critical appraisal has led me to hone my skills in reviewing papers, particularly when interpreting the results section of journals to extrapolate the most relevant findings. This is a skill that will last me the length of my career, and help me make better decisions on care for my patients.

And after all, that’s what we’re are all here for isn’t it, the best patient care? If you attend a course that enables you to provide that, you can’t ask for much more, can you?

For further details on next year’s course click here.

RETURN TO TOP