Dietitian
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A dietitian (sometimes spelled dietician) is an expert in food and nutrition. Dietitians help promote good health through proper eating. They also supervise the preparation and service of food, develop modified diets, participate in research, and educate individuals and groups on good nutritional habits. The goals of the dietary department are to obtain, prepare, and serve flavorsome, attractive, and nutritious food to patients, family members, and health care providers.
In the US nutrition professionals include the registered dietitian (RD) and the dietetic technician, registered (DTR). Some RDs or DTRs call themselves nutritionists. However, some people who may call themselves a nutritionist are not registered dietitians. Dietetic technicians are not the same as dietitians in terms of responsibilities and qualifications. Different professional terms are used in other countries.
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[edit] Types of dietitian
The majority of dietitians are clinical, or therapeutic, dietitians. Clinical dietitians review medical charts and talk with patients' families. They work with other health care professionals and community groups to provide nourishment, nutritional programs, and instructional presentations to benefit people of all ages, and with a variety of health conditions. This is accomplished by developing individual plans to meet nutritional needs. These plans include nourishment, tube feedings (called enteral nutrition), intravenous feedings (called parenteral nutrition) such as total parenteral nutrition (TPN) or peripheral parenteral nutrition (PPN), diets, and education. Clinical dietitians provide individual and group educational programs for patients and family members about their nutrition and health.
[edit] Clinical dietitians
Clinical dietitians work in hospitals to provide medical nutrition therapy to patients according to the disease processes, provides individual inpatient and outpatient dietary consultations to patients and their family members and also conduct group educations for other health workers, patients and the public. They work as a team with the physicians, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, social workers and nurses to provide care to the patients.
[edit] Community dietitians
Community dietitians work with wellness programs and international health organizations. These dietitians apply and distribute knowledge about food and nutrition to specific life-styles and geographic areas. They coordinate nutritional programs in public health agencies, daycare centers, health clubs, and recreational camps and resorts. Some community dietitians carry out clinical based patient care in the form of home visits for patients who are too ill to physically attend consultation in health facilities.
[edit] Foodservice dietitians
Foodservice dietitians or managers are responsible for large-scale food planning and service. They coordinate, assess and plan foodservice processes in health care facilities, school food service programs, prisons, cafeterias, and restaurants. They direct and manage the operational and nutrition services staffs such as kitchen staffs, delivery staffs and dietary assistants or diet aides.
[edit] Research dietitians
Research dietitians are mostly involved with dietary related research in the clinical aspect of nutrition in disease states, public aspect on primary, secondary and sometimes tertiary health prevention and foodservice aspect in issues involving the food prepared for patients. Research Dietitians normally work in a hospital or research facilities. It should be noted that some Clinical dietitian's roles also involve research other than the normal clinical workload. Quality improvement in dietetics services is also one area of research.
[edit] Administrative dietitians
Administrative, or management or Director of Dietetics Department or Nutrition Services, sometimes also known as Manager instead of Director depending on the size, number of dietitians in the department and also the organisational structure adopted by the Health facilities or Hospital. Director or Manager act as head of the dietitians. They also hire, train, direct, supervise employees and manage dietary departments
[edit] Business dietitians
Business dietitians serve as resource people for the media. They work as sales representatives for food manufacturing companies that provide nutritional supplements and tube feeding supplies.
[edit] Consultant dietitians
Consultant dietitians work under private practice. They contract independently to provide nutrition services and educational programs to individuals, nursing homes, and in health care facilities.
[edit] Other nutrition workers
These designations apply principally to the US although the generic classifications are likely to be applicable elsewhere.
[edit] Dietary assistants
Dietary assistants or dietary aides are responsible for assisting and carrying out the medical nutrition therapy prescribed by the Dietitians and to ensure that food for the patients as instructed by the Dietitians are carried out correctly by checking menus against recent diet orders before tray assembly begins and being physically present in the kitchen plating-lines at meal hours. Dietary aides in some countries might also carry out a simple initial health screening for newly admitted patients and only inform the Dietitians if any screened patients requires a dietitian's expertise for further assessments or interventions.
[edit] Dietary clerks
Dietary clerks perform clerical tasks such as entry and maintenance of dietary requirements to a database. They also track financial information, such as the number of meals served each day.
[edit] Dietary managers
Dietary managers are responsible for retail, catering, and tray lines. If an operation is large, there may be one or more managers to help in directing the dietary workers.
[edit] Dietary workers
Dietary workers prepare the food and meal trays in the kitchen. They check for accuracy and completeness. They also maintain the storage area for food supplies and ensure practice of sanitary procedures. Dietary workers are trained on the job and can work in any commercial kitchen.
[edit] Dietary hosts
Dietary hosts or hostesses deliver and bring back the meal trays to patients. They distribute and collect menus and help the patients to make complete selections.
[edit] USA
A dietitian's education in health science involves significant scientific based knowledge in anatomy, chemistry, biochemistry, biology, physiology, nutrition, medical science. It is these strong foundations in advanced scientific knowledge equipped with counseling skills and aspects of psychology which enables a Dietitian to assess, analyse, intervene, and educate a patient in relation to the diet and disease.
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It can be said that in an interdisciplinary team (consisting of the physician, dietitian, speech therapist, physiotherapist, occupational therapist, social worker, and nurses), the physician and the dietitian are the two health professionals with the most well-rounded knowledge on human biochemistry and physiology.[citation needed]
There are a few different academic routes to becoming a fully qualified registrable dietitian:
- A professional bachelor degree in Dietetics which requires four years of studies
or
- A bachelor of science degree and a postgraduate diploma in Dietetics
or
- A bachelor of science degree and a master's degree in Dietetics
Besides academic education, registered dietitians must complete up to a year long dietetic internship or 900 hours supervised by an RD before they can sit for the registration examination. The dietetic internship requires the intern to complete several areas of competency including rotations in clinical, community, long-term care nutrition as well as food service, public health and a variety of other worksites.
Once the degree is earned, the internship completed, and registration examination passed, the dietitian is able to work in a variety of professional settings. Most states require additional licensure to work in most settings. To maintain, the RD credential, professionals must participate in and earn continuing education units 75 hours every 5 years.
[edit] Professional associations
[edit] USA & Canada
In the United States and Canada, the Dietitian, Registered Dietitian (RD), etc. are similarly protected titles. The professional association in Canada is the Dietitians of Canada. The US equivalent of it is The American Dietetic Association.
