Program Timeline
Supervised Practice Hours/Program Rotations
The University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center Dietetic Internship Program will provide a 45-week supervised practice experience beginning in August and concluding in June of the following year.
Program Rotation Overview
| Dietetic Internship Orientation (clinical, food service, community) | 2 weeks |
| Medical/Surgical | 8 weeks |
| Food Production/Purchasing | 3 weeks |
| Patient Meal Services | 3 weeks |
| Oncology (Inpatient, Outpatient) | 4 weeks |
| Renal (Inpatient, Outpatient) | 1 weeks |
| Adult Critical Care | 4 weeks |
| Women’s Hospital | 1 week |
| VA Hospital (Varied Experience) | 1 week |
| Adult Ambulatory (bariatrics, sports medicine, transplant, immunology, wellness) | 3 – 6 weeks |
| Clinical Nutrition Management | 1 week |
| Pediatric General | 2 – 3 weeks |
| Pediatric Critical Care | 2 – 3 weeks |
| Pediatric Ambulatory (endocrinology, genetics, sports medicine) | 1 – 2 weeks |
| Community Nutrition | 2 week |
| Staff Relief | 4 weeks |
The University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center Dietetic Internship Program includes multidisciplinary experiences:
- Wound Rounds – Nurse led education
- NG/PEG placement - Physician led education
- MBSS/FEES – Speech Language Pathologist led education
- Multidisciplinary Rounds
- Committee Meetings
- Journal Clubs/Grand Rounds
- Quality Improvement Initiatives
**To qualify to sit for the Examination for Registered Dietitian Nutritionists by the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR), candidates must have a conferred graduate degree in addition to having completed a dietetic internship program.
Requirements for Program Completion
- All UHCMC dietetic interns are expected to comply with the Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice of The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Evaluation of professional development occurs throughout the program in every rotation.
- A variety of experiences are planned to enable the dietetic intern to attain the core knowledge and competence for entry level dietitians as outlined in the Standards of Education. The planned activities for each rotation, professional development days and special projects are minimum requirements for every intern.
- In order to progress throughout the planned rotations and complete the dietetic internship program, each rotation must be completed with a final evaluation score of 2.5 or higher.
Upon successful completion of the dietetic internship, the graduate intern will receive the Dietetic Internship (DI) Verification Statement which, in addition to a conferred graduate degree, enables them to establish eligibility to take the Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN) exam.