{"id":141,"date":"2014-09-11T08:46:16","date_gmt":"2014-09-11T15:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/?p=141"},"modified":"2025-02-27T10:47:06","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T18:47:06","slug":"your-gifts-in-action-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/2014\/09\/11\/your-gifts-in-action-2\/","title":{"rendered":"We Are Feeding Our Patients Even Better Thanks to a New Diet Kitchen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/issue\/fall-2014\/\">Fall Issue 2014<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>by Marcia Hill Gossard &#8217;99, &#8217;04 Ph.D. |&nbsp;Photos by Henry Moore, Jr.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Feeding our patients the very best nutrition got a whole lot easier thanks to a partnership between WSU and the Nestl\u00e9 Purina Center for Nutrition Excellence program. In the spring of 2013, the <a href=\"https:\/\/hospital.vetmed.wsu.edu\/\">Veterinary Teaching Hospital<\/a> received the state-of-the-art dietary kitchen thanks to a $70,000 gift from Nestl\u00e9 Purina to the college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cNestl\u00e9 Purina partnered with Washington State University to install a state-of-the-art diet kitchen, which provided a significant upgrade to the hospital\u2019s facilities,\u201d said Emily Cross, Purina Senior Veterinary Communications Manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the diet kitchen, veterinary students, residents and faculty have easier access to a wide variety of therapeutic diet brands for hospitalized animals. A computer workstation inside the kitchen allows students and veterinarians to use special nutrition software to calculate optimal diets depending on a patient\u2019s needs. There are also dispensers for dozens of dry and canned pet foods that makes it easy to prepare the special diets required by hospital patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe organization in the kitchen is very helpful in making diet recommendations based on patient conditions,\u201d said Matt Mickas, WSU small animal veterinarian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For oncology patients, for instance, who greatly benefit from additional calories and high quality nutrition, the kitchen can help veterinarians easily find the optimal diet plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhen animals are really sick they can have food aversions,\u201d said Rebekah Lewis, a WSU oncology resident. \u201cHaving a variety helps a lot because we can try different foods.\u201d Lewis explained that maintaining a good quality of life for patients is the goal. \u201cWe want them to be as happy and comfortable as we can,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBy providing ready access to optimally formulated diets, the kitchen enhances the care and recovery of small animal patients,\u201d said Deb Sellon, director of the Teaching Hospital. \u201cIt also is a great educational tool to help veterinary students better understand how important nutrition is in a comprehensive medical care plan for their patients.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p>Nestl\u00e9 Purina also supports the WSU Pet Loss Support Hotline, the Veterinary Clinical Communications Program, senior papers, scholarships, and our Transitions Ceremony for third year students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Feeding our patients the very best nutrition got a whole lot easier thanks to a partnership between WSU and the Nestl\u00e9 Purina Center for Nutrition Excellence program. In the spring of 2013, the Veterinary Teaching Hospital received the state of-the-art dietary kitchen thanks to a $70,000 gift from Nestl\u00e9 Purina to the college.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1015,"featured_media":921,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wsuwp_accessibility_report":null},"categories":[542,514],"tags":[619,540,614],"wsuwp_university_location":[332],"wsuwp_university_org":[425],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1015"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4135,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions\/4135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_location?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_org","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_org?post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}