Dietetic Internship- What is it and What’s my Experience with a Corporate Wellness Concentration?

Hey there! I’m Illa! If you don’t know me I’m a current dietetic intern. I thought I would take a little time to explain what this even means and what my experience has been like thus far. Many people understand what nursing school or PT school or a medical residency is, but not many people really understand what is required in order to become a registered dietitian (RD). I’m here to clear the air and tell you a little bit of my experience!

To become a registered dietitian one must first go to an accredited (basically means this higher body makes sure you’re providing all the right classes) university to earn your bachelor’s degree in food and nutrition. You take so many different types of classes because nutrition has to do with everything! We take psychology classes, cooking classes, anatomy and physiology, organic chemistry, microbiology, statistics and so much more. While in school, you must also gain around 1000 hours of nutrition related experience with counseling people, working in the clinical setting, volunteering at food pantries or anything else that has to do with nutrition so that you’ll be ready for your internship!

Yay you’re in your internship! What does that mean exactly? There are many different kinds of internships with different concentrations and requirements. Although each internship is a little different, they all require a clinical rotation, food service rotation, and community rotation. This means that a dietetic intern will work in a hospital with sick patients, cafeteria learning about budgeting and food safety, and some sort of facility educating the public about nutrition.

A key aspect that separates dietetic internships from other internships is that this is treated like another year of school meaning there is a tuition cost. I believe that many other medical internships are like this, but most are lumped in with grad school, not like a separate program that you apply to just for the “hands-on” experience. Aspiring registered dietitians (RD) know this, and are willing to invest their time and money in order to be trained by more experienced RDs so that they can help their future client/patients reach their own nutrition goals. 

After you’re done with your internship what’s next? The exam! It is suggested to take off anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months to study for the exam. This a multiple choice test with content pertaining to research, food safety, counseling techniques, food preparation, medical nutrition therapy, and much more. Once you pass, congrats! You’re an RD!!

Looking back on my internship year, I think it’s awesome that we have to experience so much before we have to decide which type of dietitian to be! I chose the concentration of corporate wellness, so I tailored all of my experiences around that. Both my food service and concentration rotation were at corporate sites, and my community site was with a traveling corporate wellness company called Summerfield Custom Wellness. They hire RD’s to go to different companies in the area to counsel employees at their own worksite! I have had an awesome time with them and have loved the diversity of the job activities such as virtual group classes, individual sessions, telehealth, content creation, recipe development, and so much more!

I’ve been especially impressed with the impact an RD can have just by counseling a few of the employees in the workplace. For example, one of the clients that my preceptor, Kyrstin Draney RD, let me listen to said that his whole department has decided to eat out less for lunch and also stop ordering pizza on Fridays. And he’s the only one in the department coming to counseling! I was blown away from the idea that counseling one person could have such an impact on the healthfulness of a whole department. There have been other departments where multiple people are being counseled and it’s amazing to see the support system they provide for each other from just the 1 hour a week with the RD. They talk about how they exchange recipes, have (healthy) office potlucks, and meet each other outside of work to go to the gym.

With my 3 weeks with Summerfield, it has become so evident that there is a need for more RD’s in the workplace. So many clients that I’ve observed become very overwhelmed with the stress of work and life and nutrition seems to just fall through the cracks. Kyrstin is able to help the clients push through the messiness of life to prioritize health and ultimately help the client feel a little bit better. Does she help your problems with your boss? Or your unsupportive spouse? Or your sick family member? No- but it’s amazing how feeling better through when you eat can help you to have a more positive outlook on the rest of all those problems.

Having an RD available in the workplace provides a constant reminder to make healthy choices even when you’re stressed, overwhelmed, or just in a bad mood. It eliminates the hassle of having to set aside time after work to meet with an RD, and it also keeps this from being such a separate part of your life. When your coworkers are also seeing the same RD, you can go through this never-ending health journey together at a place where you will spend ⅓ of your life- work! I have loved all of my experiences thus far interning in corporate wellness and hope to one day be a part of a practice like Summerfield Custom Wellness!

If you’re reading this and are interested in nutrition counseling with an RD or want Summerfield to come to your company you can contact them through their website: https://summerfieldcustomwellness.com/how-we-help/nutrition-counseling/