Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Kin student discovers career path at summer camp

By Christine Nhan

Fourth-year Kinesiology student Laurin Black proves that it’s never too late to learn valuable lessons from summer camp. Last summer, she landed a co-op position with Easter Seals Ontario, working at a camp for children with various physical disabilities.

Black’s co-op experience had a profound impact on her career direction. “I originally thought I wanted to work with the geriatric population, but after my work term I realized working with disabled youth better suited my own skillset,” she explains. “It was extremely fulfilling to witness campers’ huge smiles as they explored a world designed for their own special needs.” Building strong relationships with campers and putting smiles on their faces, Black realized that she wanted to pursue a career as a pediatric physio- or occupational therapist.

As part of her weekly routine, Black assisted young individuals through everyday tasks and camp activities, such as wheelchair basketball, swimming and pottery. “My days would often start at 6:30 a.m. Many of the campers struggled to get themselves ready, so we dressed them, brushed their teeth, applied sunscreen and put on their orthotics,” says Black.

Black credits her co-op experience for shaping her career decisions and helping her better understand the field of kinesiology and rehabilitation sciences. “Having a blend of classroom and work experience truly enhances my learning as I got to understand both the textbook and real life perspective,” says Black. “It’s different learning about cerebral palsied gait in school versus seeing it firsthand.”

Kinesiology is a large and diverse field, and many students are unfamiliar with the different kinesiology-related jobs and careers they can pursue. Black advises fellow co-op students to explore their options. “Go into everything with an open mind. Every opportunity and challenge in the workplace is a chance for anyone to learn as an individual.”

Three Minute Thesis provincial finals today

The University of Waterloo’s Graduate Studies Office is organizing the fifth annual Ontario (provincial) Three Minute Thesis competition today. 

The Three Minute Thesis (3MT) provincial finals are being held at the CIGI auditorium in the CIGI Campus in Uptown Waterloo at 10:00 a.m. 

Members of the University community are invitied to cheer on Waterloo 3MT finalist and provincial competitor Emmanuel Alabi, as he competes against the top contenders from across the province! 

The competition is open to the public; there is no need to RSVP.

"We have a great set of esteemed judges including Rob Baker of The Tragically Hip as well as Doug Fregin, who co-founded BlackBerry," says a note from the Graduate Studies Office. A detailed list of judges and competitors is available online.

The winner of the provincial competition will move on to the national finals, hosted by the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies (CAGS) in the spring. Last year, University of Waterloo’s competitor, Gah-Jone Won, won the provincial, and then the national, competition.

If you are unable to attend the event in person, please consider watching via livestream.

Mealtime tool combats hospital malnutrition

University of Waterloo researchers have created a tool aimed at decreasing the rate of malnutrition in hospitals. Known as the Mealtime Audit Tool (MAT), it will help dietitians, doctors and nurses identify why a third of patients in acute care settings don’t eat the food on their trays.

“We know poor food intake is happening in hospitals, and until now we didn’t have a way of systematically understanding why,” said Heather Keller, a professor in the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences and a Schlegel Research Chair in Nutrition and Aging. “As malnutrition is a significant issue in hospitals, especially in surgical and medical units where long-term stays are not expected, nutrition is more difficult to monitor.”

The MAT is a 17-question survey designed to identify why an individual patient is not eating well and also provides information to improve unit-wide practices.

“With MAT, clinicians should be able to identify and solve nutrition issues at both the individual and the unit level,” said Professor Keller.

Common barriers to food intake that MAT could help identify for individual patients as well as whole hospital units include: inconvenient meal times, hot foods arriving cold, dissatisfaction with food quality, interruptions during meals, unpleasant odours and distracting eating environments.

The nutritional status of about 20 per cent of patients deteriorates during a hospital stay. It can lead to longer hospital stays.

“Even patients who enter the hospital in good health are at risk for malnutrition,” said Professor Keller. “By ensuring patients are getting the nutrition they need, we are not only expediting their recovery, but ensuring that complications due to poor food and fluid intake, like delirium and falls, do not occur while in hospital.”

The next phase of MAT development will include an app to administer the survey and software to track and analyze responses.

Keller’s research recently appeared in the Journal of Nutrition Health and Aging.

Wednesday's notes

In case you missed it, the winners of the Velocity Fund Finals have been named:

• EMAGIN leverages artificial intelligence to help water utilities proactively manage their infrastructure.
• Gamelynx uses cutting-edge web app technology to create games and interactive experiences that bring people together for face-to-face play. Gamelynx combines the fun and social interaction of party and board games, with the convenience and power of mobile web gaming.
• Marlena Books creates therapeutic recreation products for individuals with Alzheimer’s or dementia, specializing in hardcopy books that make reading enjoyable and dignifying. Marlena Books is expanding into the tech space with e-books and a recreation app for individuals with more advanced dementia.
• Serenity Bioworks is developing novel medicine formulas to improve the long-term effectiveness and safety of anti- inflammatory medication.

The Velocity Fund Finals took place on Thursday, March 30. For more information, including the winners of the $5K prizes, check out the full story on the Velocity website.

The annual Matthews Golf Classic will be take place on Monday, June 19 at Grand Valley Golf Course. The Matthews Classic is a golf tournament held once a year in June and is open to all staff, faculty, students, retirees, alumni, contractors and invited guests. The event started in honour of Burt Matthews, President of the University of Waterloo from 1970 to 1981.

Online registration will take place on Wednesday, April 19 at 8:30 a.m.