Dietetic Internship Program Curriculum

About Our Curriculum

Learn more about the curriculum of the Dietetic Internship, including rotations and tailored learning opportunities.

Acute Care Inpatient

Dietetic interns collaborate with the multidisciplinary team to provide nutrition care to a variety of medical and surgical patients. They develop skills in nutrition assessment and intervention, diet education, and various modalities of nutrition support. In addition, they acquire experiences in intensive care, transplant, clinical research, pediatrics, and community hospital settings. Altogether, interns accumulate 20+ weeks of inpatient experience, and are well-position to gain a clinical or specialty role after the internship.

Ambulatory and Community Nutrition Services

Under the supervision of our RD specialists, dietetic interns gain counseling skills in multiple clinics during their outpatient rotation. They apply their skills in the areas of general nutrition, weight management, diabetes, GI, oncology, cardiovascular health, and more. They’ll work with medical interpreters, navigate a session from start to finish, negotiate and set goals with patients, and educate individuals on therapeutic diets.

Food Service Management

Food Service Management gives the interns hands-on experience working within a large food delivery engineering operation. They’ll assist in all areas, including patient food service, purchasing, production, catering, and cafeteria management. Interns develop skills in menu planning, food production and distribution, standardization of recipes, quality control and improvement, safety and sanitation, fiscal control and financial management, and human resource management. The Food Service Management Rotation is approximately four weeks.

Opportunity for a Pediatric Focus

In partnership with Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH), we have the capacity to provide a pediatric focus for 1 or 2 interns. This alternate experience allows an intern to spend approximately 10-12 weeks in the pediatric setting, in place of some adult nutrition and specialty rotations at BIDMC.

The process of determining who our pediatric focus intern will be happens early at the start of the internship. Matching to the BIDMC internship does not guarantee placement in the pediatric focus. As an applicant, you are welcome to express your interest in the pediatric focus, but first and foremost, you must be committed to the standard BIDMC internship curriculum.

Plan Your Own

Dietetic interns have a unique opportunity to plan their own learning objectives and experiences. This allows them to gain experiences that align directly with their professional goals. Common examples of areas of dietetics they have gained exposure to include the following:

• Functional nutrition
• Nutrition care in burn patients
• Sports nutrition
• Inborn errors of metabolism
• Private practice
• Recipe development/nutrition communication