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Dietetic Internship Year

  • A minimum of 1000 practice hours. Rotations are completed in 4 different areas: clinical, food service, community, and area of concentration. Rotations must provide learning activities to attain the breadth and depth of the core competencies and concentration competencies. Learning activities throughout the rotation areas must prepare interns to implement the Nutrition Care Process with various populations and diverse cultures across the life cycle including infants, children, adolescents, adults, pregnant/lactating females and older adults. Learning activities must use a variety of educational approaches necessary for delivery of curriculum content to meet learner needs and facilitate learning objectives.
    • A minimum of 300 hours (maximum 400 hours) must be completed in a clinical rotation(s), with both inpatient and outpatient hours. Your clinical inpatient preceptor must be a full-time RD. Ideally, more than one preceptor in your schedule will be an RD, such as a clinical outpatient RD. At least one hospital must be JCAHO or DNV approved with 80 or more beds, and this is where the majority of your clinical hours should be completed. Learning activities should prepare interns for professional practice with patients/clients with various conditions, including, but not limited to overweight and obesity; endocrine disorders; cancer; malnutrition and cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and renal diseases.
    • A minimum of 300 hours (maximum 400 hours) must be completed in a food service rotation(s). Food service hours can be obtained in any facility with an industrial kitchen offering experience in food procurement, production, & distribution.  Examples of possible facilities include hospitals, long-term care facilities, schools, food banks, community centers, restaurants, etc.
    • A minimum of 300 hours (maximum 400 hours) must be completed in a community rotation(s). Rotations with WIC and government assisted programs are strongly encouraged.
    • A minimum of 100 hours (maximum 200 hours) must be completed in an area of concentration, Nutrition Education & Counseling, ICU, or Management.
    • A minimum of 40 hours (maximum 80 hours) must be completed in a Long Term Care (LTC) facility as part of your clinical hours OR your foodservice hours.
  • Homework hours are not considered part of the required 1,000 supervised practice hours and all interns are required to complete specific assignments outside of practice hours.
  • The achievement of competencies is documented through the use of Rotation Evaluation Forms. 
  • Domain Examinations are taken online in order to assist in preparation of the Registered Dietitian Certification Exam.
  • Completion of on-going surveys of the UNC dietetic internship will be expected throughout your experience.
  • Completion of an exit survey must be done prior to graduating from the UNC internship.
  • You will earn a Master of Science degree in Dietetics after completion of graduate coursework and internship rotation.