Still Learning

Wayne Roe, executive chef for Sodexo at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, spent the first 30-plus years of his career in commercial restaurants. After doing “everything there was to do with food” including owning his own restaurant, Roe moved to the Children’s Hospital two years ago to continue learning. During the process he created Chef to Child, a program where he visits patients to find out what they like to eat.

“I wanted to upgrade my skills. I have pretty much done everything there is to do with food , but I didn’t really know the full material of the molecular breakdown of food and how it affects people on a daily basis. There are a lot of foods that affect people on chemotherapy and other treatments. They can actually negate the treatment.

The biggest surprise when I joined the hospital was I thought I knew more than I did. There was a lot of work with allergies and specific menus. You have to be very careful with portions for diabetic patients and things like that. When you’re in a commercial restaurant you are portioning for food costs and not because it’s a matter of life and death.

The main thing that started Chef to Child was that kids don’t get real interested in food when they are in the hospital. No. 1, they are in a hospital bed so they are not exerting themselves, so they don’t really build a hunger. The second thing is that due to the medication food doesn’t taste good to them. I decided there has to be a way to get them to eat. It’s mostly finding out what they want to eat and then to find out if they can have that on their diet. It makes a huge difference, especially if they are losing weight or need to put on weight before a treatment. I have a lot of great memories. The main thing is building a trust with the patient. I usually give them a chef’s hat and bring them on board as a junior chef. We play stump the chef. Believe it or not, they sometimes stump me. After 35 years in this industry they come up with foods I’ve never heard.

The most rewarding aspect of my job now that I’m working in a hospital is when the kids are healthy enough to go home. Even though I have very little to do with it, when one of my patients goes home I always say I cured another one. I always tell them I hope I never see you again.”