r/dietetics

I have been doing nutrition counseling for about 2 years now and the GLP-1's have gotten out of hand with how easy it is for people to get access to them. I am in agreeance with the post made earlier about GLP-1s and the culture that surrounds them. But my concern for making this post is that I have seen referrals and heard from many patients who have been given guidance/told to consume as low as 40-50g carbs per day from their doctors. Genuinely what the actual fuck.

I’m especially interested in how much control you have over your schedule, patient load, and whether you can step away during the day or work remotely.

I work in community and the number of people who ask me if I had to study to become a dietitian is very high! It’s mildly insulting/surprising, but it opens up a conversation about just how educated we are and how rigorous our schooling is. They usually are very impressed with how much we have to learn in order to become credentialed.

Anyone else get silly/random questions about being a dietitian that you didn’t anticipate when you chose this career?

Especially interested in NON-RD roles with decent work-life balance, autonomy, and solid medical/dental/vision insurance. 

How did you come across the job? What keywords did you use?

I am an RD/CDCES at a critical access hospital in Montana. The hospital is rural, but 60 miles from a big city. i am the outpatient RD, inpatient RD, and supervise the dietary department (6 people). I make the menu, coordinate ordering, personnel, hiring and training, QAPI, and am starting diabetes ed support groups and classes in the outpatient side. So, a lot of things!

i have been connected with this hospital for 5 years as a contractor and built good rapport. I have 7 years of experience as an RD. as a full time employee, they want to pay me $46/hour. i don't feel this is high enough for my role. i know that other leaders in the hospital are making at least $75/hour.

thoughts?

I have 77 out 75 CEUs completed.

I did 9 webinars through soundbites podcast each for 1 CEU.

15 credit course on nutrition support and a 12 credit course on renal MNT both from dietitians on demand.

25 credit book and a 15 credit book (plus answering the test questions) both from Dietitian360.

And of course, 1 ethics credit from Dietitian360.

I got all the certificates and double checked the info on them, and upload them to my activity log.

Hypothetically, lets say they deny 3 credits from like the webinars... after I submit everything... and with all the credits being due by the end of this month. Do I get a grace period to make up the credits they denied?

It's my first cycle and I am overthinking everything.

I had a med student follow/ shadow the dietitians at my hospital, and she showed me one of the best tools I've ever used for research, gaining understanding of different concepts/ building clinical skills, ect. The tool is called Open Evidence. its a AI chat bot trained on medical journals and It's free to use if you have an NPI number. Its been my favorite tool. Something new they added is a continuing education section that tallies up your queries and counts that as continuing education credits. CME's they say that they are "AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™" but I'm not sure if they will work for the Academy. Has anyone uploaded these/ audited them? Do they work?

If not then it really is a shame. I have learned more from OE than I have from most all of my other continuing educations. If you have any experience with the continuing eds please let me know, and If you haven't given it a try I highly recommend it. Cheers!

How long do monitor a resident after a wt loss? A month after being stable? Or do you usually keep them on your weight sheet longer?

Hi! I just recently accepted a PRN position and I’m unsure about the hours. I’ll just be covering if they’re out sick or on vacation. I do know that there was be a period toward the end of the year where I’ll be working a couple of months for 40hrs. I don’t exactly want to wait to start my career the end of the year, but I have an upcoming interview that’s a full time position with no weekends. How do I go about this? Should I tell them about the PRN position I’m about to start? Would it even be likely they would hire me because of the PRN position?

I'm graduating in a few days with my MS in nutrition and dietetics, and I finished my clinical (and final) internship April 1st.

I started applying mid April and I'm already feeling disillusioned. I was at a nursing home for my clinical and I didn't realize until interviewing how little it prepared me for the hospital clinical setting. I didn't get much experience in EN & PN, NFPEs, and they didn't even write PES statements! I wrote them myself in my log books so I could keep the practice fresh. I don't like being dishonest in interviews, but when I am completely transparent, I feel like I'm telling hiring managers all the reasons why I'm not qualified.

Also, I don't have the ability to wait and study for the RD exam before trying to get a job, especially because I have a friend depending on me to get a job by August-October so we can sign a lease together. But it has been so difficult to RD-eligible jobs. I doubt anyone will read this whole thing, but any advice from RDs who have recently overcome this or anyone who can relate so we can feel a little less alone—please share. Would help ease my mind a bit lol

My two red flags are

A) she is not calling herself an RD but she is allowing others to call her that when referring clients to her and she is not correcting them so she is receiving clients under false pretenses and imo knowingly doing this counts as fraud just the same

B) she is practicing MNT for gestational diabetes and clearly doesn’t understand the actual nuances of GDM and isn’t even credentialed as a CDE/CDCES

Another red flag that I don’t think I can report but disturbs me is that she pushes consuming beef liver in lieu of prenatal vitamins which can easily be teratogenic.

This is CO, USA. I tried googling how to report but I’m just running in circles instead of getting anywhere on it.

It’s not bundled and I know a lot of pts can qualify for ardelyx assist, but who is paying for that??

Hey yall,

I just graduated with my B.S. in Food & Nutritional Sciences (emphasis on Public Health Nutrition) & B.S. in Biology - pre-med. I just got hired as a Nutritionist for WIC. The hiring process took like 3 months, and I didn't even know where I was gonna be placed until like 3 weeks before my lease ended at my old apartment.

The salary range was from $40k-$47k. The salary I would be receiving wasn't transparent and wasn't discussed in the interview (maybe my mistake).

My experience includes:

-5 months VA clinic practicum

-2 years NICU clinical nutrition

-2 years clinical foodservice (dietary specialist & patient ed)

-3 months nutrition ed internship

With that experience and 2 degrees, I would've thought my salary would be higher, however I was given the lowest amount of $40k. When I had asked if I could be reimbursed for my mileage (I am driving about 60 miles every day, 5 days a week) and my supervisor stated I "should've moved closer to my site". However, I wasn't told where I would be placed in really an adequate amount of time for me to find a place. In short, they denied my request to get reimbursed, and I'm not even making $40k after taxes.

I just feel really defeated and I'm looking for other jobs, but I live in a pretty rural area because I moved for this job. Its hard to find jobs around here in person, but remote positions are intimidating.

I'm taking a year off to work to be able to pay off my M.S. program.

Does anyone have any advice?

Hi,

I’m trying to explore diffferent areas to pivot my career. I have an interesting opportunity that evolved to possibly oversea a health food quick serve store as a store manager but my only experience is my internships at a LTC facility during 2021 when internships were sloppy to say the least, short staffed and I was trained by a DTR at a nursing home.

My experience with fast food is college jobs that I hated b IT mainly cause I was register and direct facing patient care. Can anyone give me an idea of what day-to-day store manager entails or if RDN program has given me even the training to succeed in this area if I pivot. The hiring manager seems highly engaged in me as a potential hire but I just do not have any confidence in myself at this time and am scared of being a nightmare manager that employees just hate 😭

Hello! I’m an RND from the Philippines and I’m considering moving to the U.S. I’ve been researching the process of becoming an RD there, and it seems more complicated now, especially with the master’s degree requirement. Because of that, I’ve been looking into Diet Tech

For those currently working as Diet Techs in the U.S., what is the work like day-to-day? How’s the workload, salary, work environment, and overall experience? Would you recommend it for someone coming from an RND background in the Philippines?

Hello all, I am in my Capstone course for Psychology and for our group project, we each need to find somebody to interview in the field/specialty chosen. Our group decided to focus on those that help clients on their weight loss journey. I am sincerely hoping that someone on this sub either works in this general area or knows someone who does and would be able and willing to answer a series of questions we have! It can be as simple as e-mailing the questions and typing up a response, or whatever other alternatives you would prefer. Thank you all in advance for any help you can provide!

I have a job offer for a smaller telehealth start up and they are located close to where I live. The other offer is for a larger telehealth company that’s already more established nationwide. (It is not one of the larger telehealth companies with a bad reputation, it seems reasonable.) The larger one offers more pay and the smaller one feels like they might prioritize my schedule more but I am not sure. Larger one is 1099 and still a bit more pay than the smaller one which is W2 pay. I don’t know which choice to make. I’ve gone through a few of these telehealth jobs now and I’m constantly positioning myself to pivot to another opportunity due to the changes that keep happening in the field of telehealth.

Is it ok to use a standing desk and stand for part of your video sessions with telehealth clients? It’s hard to sit for several hours at a time. I feel weird changing to a standing or sitting position during a session and there isn’t always time between clients to move around a lot.

Hello!

As my username suggests, I’m a Chef in Reno, NV. I’ve been grateful to have found senior living food service, and at the risk of sounding cheesy, it’s been nothing short of the most rewarding experience I’ve had in 9 years of professional cooking.

I was recently promoted to a dietary management role and I’m thinking of long term growth, both in my current operation and company.

Some more context: 60 bed memory care community, along with the standard assortment of diets. I’ve got a bachelors degree in culinary arts, along with the usual ServSafe cert. as well as the ability to instruct and proctor the exam itself.

In my current role, is it be worth more of my time to earn the CDM CFPP credentials, or enroll into a Master’s in Nutrition to then go onto an RDN path?

For what it’s worth, it’s not entirely a money issue but naturally there’s some price differences in each program or credential I’m looking at.

I’m in luck that my local University (shoutout UNR) offers a Master’s program, and I’m all for investing in one’s self educationally of course. But roughly $1800 vs close to $11k is absolutely worth asking the question, if I made the transition from chef coat to…scrubs or suits…..what’s more worth it?

If you made it this far…thank you for reading. I’m open to any and all advice and suggestions, and DM’s as well. Thanks everyone 🙏🏻

I am an acute care RD. Without going into detail, I have a patient whose family member has really extreme food beliefs, which has been inhibiting safe and appropriate nutrition care for this person. Ultimately, it has caused the patient to have severely inadequate intakes for weeks now. Unfortunately, this family member is the substitute decision maker, so I have to follow along. MD hasn't been interested in pursuing an ethics review. It's a very complex case which is teaching me lots, but the moral distress is pretty disturbing.

I've advocated options to the family, and I think a good solution is in effect, but I am feeling doubtful about the patient tolerating. However, the family member has outright declined all readily available options, even going as far as questioning my professional recommendations several times as they are a nutritionist (online certificate).

I am just genuinely shocked that the family is willing for the patient to basically starve because the readily available options for nutrition do not fit into their beliefs. It's really unnerving. I sense there are psychiatric elements at play...of course, that's not my scope to determine. However, the food beliefs are verging on delusional, but that's just my take.

Fortunately, I got to a point where I've built good rapport with this family member. However, I find myself laughing out loud in disbelief after my interactions with them.

Just wanted to share this really extreme example of how fear around food can really drive malnutrition.

ETA: I appreciate all your advice, however I have already exhausted what I can do. Social work is present in rounds and are aware of the situation. I have also had extensive conversations with the MD regarding this family member. This post is purely for rant purposes.