If you’re looking for the clinical nutrition skills you need to thrive in your dietetic internship, this is where to start.
Congratulations, you’re dietetic intern! Now what?
You finally got matched and you’re ready to own the title Dietetic Intern. A title you clearly deserve, after all the blood sweat and tears that went into getting that nutrition degree.
But now you’re faced with a new question. Are you ready to actually DO nutrition? Like in real life, with real people?
The hard reality of the DI
Many of us become so wrapped up in the school part of nutrition that the real life needs of an internship can feel like getting tossed into the deep end of a pool without a proper swimming lesson.
Others land an internship, only to find out that our clinical rotations are a little skimpy. And don’t give us a chance to really delve into the acute care needs of hospital patients.
Either way, the hard reality is developing the clinical nutrition skills we need to get comfortable in acute care and feel good about talking to patients. Sometimes requires more information than we’re given in our internship.
Does any of this sound familiar?
- You’re handed new referrals with multiple health issues. But you can’t ever figure out what’s most important or how to focus your care plan.
- You walk into a room to do nutrition counseling, but you have no idea what to say to so your client doesn’t immediately get bored or toss your helpful handout the minute you walk away.
- You’re writing your nutrition notes like you were taught in school, but you always feel like you’re missing something important.
- You’ve got to get your patient’s doctor to make a change, but you’re terrified they’ll tell you don’t know what you’re talking about. (And even more scared they might be right!).
It starts with asking better questions
It’s not unusual to feel like nothing you learned in school is actually applicable to what you’re being asked to do during your rotations. It’s also pretty common to realize that all the information you’ve picked up in school doesn’t really help you do your job or help you give your patients what they need.
At least that’s how it was for me — for a long, long time.
When I started in clinical nutrition, I thought I would never get the hang of it. Mostly I figured some people were just cut out for clinical work. And I probably wasn’t one of them.
It wasn’t until I started to ask better questions and come up with some really good tools that I didn’t just get the hang of clinical nutrition. I started to actually enjoy it.
The 4 basic clinical nutrition skills we all need
Feeling comfortable in clinical nutrition can feel like an immense task. It’s so easy to focus on how much we don’t know and always see how many mistakes we can potentially make.
But what I’ve learned is that at the heart of it, clinical nutrition is pretty simple. When you break it down, there are 4 basic skills invaluable in clinical nutrition.
These 4 clinical nutrition skill basics are:
- A patient care roadmap so you know what to do, from that first referral to the final discharge.
- How to write a great diet order, without missing any key diet modifications.
- Explaining tough nutrition concepts simply.
- Knowing how to pull all the parts of clinical nutrition together.
Acute Care Starter Guide: Your patient care roadmap
The Acute Care Starter Guide is a 30 page guide that walks you through how to do every part of clinical nutrition.
It’s full of all kinds of tips and tricks that will make sure you know exactly where to start when you first get a new patient referral. As well as what to look for as you’re writing your care plan. And then how to wrap up once your patient is ready to be discharged.
Download your free guide HERE.
Diet Order Quick Course: Write a Great Diet Order
What the Acute Care Starter Guide doesn’t tell you is how to formulate a complete diet order. This is one of the trickier parts of clinical nutrition. Not because it’s really hard but because we don’t learn how to make sure it’s complete. This short 30 minute set of videos and cheat sheets will make sure you never forget any part of that process. And have a full diet order ready to go for every patient you see.
Clinical Nutrition Counseling Office Hours: Learn patient management
Use these videos and live sessions as an easy way to watch how each part of the nutrition note comes together.
Things get tricky when there’s a lot of diagnoses, lab work to juggle and tough questions about where to start. Office hours walks you through real life patient scenarios you’ll likely see in your practice.
Sign up for the next session or binge watch past office hours HERE.
Nutrition Quick Chats: Motivational interviewing for the clinical setting
This self-paced program gives you all the tools and support you need to have any kind of conversation with any patient.
When we’re just starting out, it’s so easy to get stuck in what we want to tell our patients and forget to think a little about what they want to know. This online course will show you exactly how to get the hang of motivational interviewing and nutrition counseling.
Ready to take Nutrition Quick Chats? ENROLL HERE
And That’s It!
Once you’ve got these tools, everything in clinical nutrition gets way easier. You might even start enjoying yourself.
Want even more to help in clinical?
Check out The Nutrition Cheat Sheets Shop for all the nutrition education and clinical resources that will make your life easier.
