Hi all! I am planning to sit for the certification exam soon. Thought it may be helpful to have a discussion thread for tips, tricks and/or suggestions for those of us getting ready for the exam! Any advice is appreciated! 

When qualifying patients for malnutrition using ASPEN guidelines, do you use the NFPE as one criteria or two criteria with >/= 2 areas of muscle wasting and >/= 2 areas of fat wasting counted? I was trained to count NFPE only as one criteria, but recently have come across others whom use it as the 2 criteria they need to diagnose malnutrition. Thoughts?

I have only worked in LTC/rehab so I have no experience in critical care and nutrition support but I want to know more. What resources could I use to learn more about this? 

I attended the Nutrition Support Fundamentals pre-conference course today and during Linda Lord's talk, she mentioned that checking gastric residual volumes is controversial.  I am a gastroenterologist and I work for 2 different hospitals - one seems to have checking GRV as part of their protocol for patients receiving EN and the other does not.  The GI society (American College of Gastroenterology) guidelines by McClave et al. from 2016 actually give a conditional recommendation not to routinely check GRV to monitor tolerance of feedings in hospitalized patients.  I am just curious to know what other institutions are doing.

Hello everyone. We have just started using ProSource NoCarb in our ICU. So far, it appears to be well tolerated, and apart from being a little sticky, RN's are finding it easy to administer. What liquid protein products are other ICU's using and it is effective and easy to administer?

How do I join ASPEN?

How can I get more involved and volunteer with ASPEN?

What are some short term, simple, volunteer opportunities for those of us fairly 'new' to the organization?

Where do I find the Foundation's grant application?

Any way to attend center stage events, if we only purchased preconference courses?