Taking Time to do a Dietetic Internship

I graduated from Cornell having fulfilled the undergraduate course requirements in dietetics. I applied the summer following graduation and began my dietetic internship that fall. I was able to arrange my schedule to go to interviews during my dietetic internship.

My internship was clinically oriented and included rotations in various medical fields (endocrinology, cardilogy, oncology, GI, infectious disease, neurology, renal, nutritional support, pediatrics, psych/behavioral health etc.,) at numerous sites. During these rotations, I saw patients daily, completed nutrition screens and assessments, provising nutrition education, and working with other members of the health care team to select appropriate diets or nutrition support, depending on the disease state. I learned how to read lab values, assess nutritional needs depending on disease states, and how to work as part of a health care team. I completed my registration exam and am now a Registered Dietitian (R.D.).

As a first year medical student practicing patient interviews in a primary care setting, I feel just as prepared as some of the 3rd year students to access and treat patients—particularly because of the prevalence of nutritian-related disease such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. At medical school I am co-teaching a nutrition elective course, helped start a nutrition organization, and I coordinate health education at my med school's free health clinic. The dietetic internship was the best thing I could have done preceding medical school.