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A dietitian, medical dietitian, or dietician is an expert in identifying and treating disease-related malnutrition and in conducting medical nutrition therapy, for example designing an enteral tube feeding regimen or mitigating the effects of cancer cachexia. Many dietitians work in hospitals and usually see specific patients where a nutritional assessment and intervention has been requested by a doctor or nurse, for example if a patient has lost their ability to swallow or requires artificial nutrition due to intestinal failure. Dietitians are the only regulated healthcare professionals licensed to assess, diagnose, and treat such problems. In the United Kingdom, dietitian is a 'protected title', meaning identifying yourself as a dietitian without appropriate education and registration is prohibited by law.
A registered dietitian (RD) (UK/USA) or registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) (USA) meets all of a set of special academic and professional requirements, including the completion of a bachelor's and/or master's degree in nutrition and dietetics (or equivalent). 1 or more internships (USA) or clinical placements (UK) must also be completed. These may be allocated and monitored by the university as part of the structured degree programme (UK) or may be applied for separately (USA).
Roughly half of all RD(N)s hold graduate degrees and many have certifications in specialized fields such as nutrition support, sports, paediatrics, renal, oncological, food-allergy, or gerontological nutrition. Although assessment priorities differ depending on the specialist area, a patient's medical and surgical history, biochemistry, diet history, eating and exercise habits usually form the basis of assessment. The RD(N) negotiates a treatment plan with the patient which may include prescriptions, and follow-up visits often focus on maintenance and monitoring progress.
Most RDs work in the treatment and prevention of disease (administering medical nutrition therapy, as part of medical teams), often in hospitals, health-maintenance organizations, private practices, or other health-care facilities. In addition, many registered dietitians work in community and public-health settings, and/or in academia and research. A growing number of dietitians work in the food industry, journalism, sports nutrition, corporate wellness programs, and other non-traditional dietetics settings.
Clinical Dietitians
Clinical dietitians work in hospitals, outpatient clinics, nursing care facilities and other health care facilities to provide nutrition therapy to patients with a variety of health conditions, and provide dietary consultations to patients and their families. They confer with other health care professionals to review patients' medical charts and develop individual plans to meet nutritional requirements. Some clinical dietitians will also create or deliver outpatient or public education programs in health and nutrition. Clinical dietitians may provide specialized services in areas of nourishment and diets, tube feedings (called enteral nutrition), and intravenous feedings (called parenteral nutrition) such as total parenteral nutrition (TPN) or peripheral parenteral nutrition (PPN). They work as a team with the physicians, physician assistants, physical therapists, occupational therapists, recreational therapists, pharmacists, speech therapists, social workers, nurses, dietetic technicians, psychologists and other careers to provide care to patients. Some clinical dietitians have dual responsibilities with patient nutrition therapy and in food service or research (described below).
Community Dietitians
Community dietitians work with wellness programs, public health agencies, home care agencies, and health maintenance organizations. These dietitians apply and distribute knowledge about food and nutrition to individuals and groups of specific categories, life-styles and geographic areas in order to promote health. They often focus on the needs of the elderly, children, or other individuals with special needs or limited access to healthy food. Some community dietitians conduct home visits for patients who are too physically ill to attend consultations in health facilities in order to provide care and instruction on grocery shopping and food preparation.
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, restaurants, and company cafeterias. These dietitians may perform audits of their departments to ensure quality control and food safety standards, and launch new menus and various programs within their institution to meet health and nutritional requirements. They train and supervise other food service workers such as kitchen staff, delivery staff, and dietary assistants or aides.
Gerontological Dietitians
Gerontological dietitians are specialists in nutrition and aging. They work in nursing homes, community-based aged care agencies, government agencies in aging policy, and in higher education in the field of gerontology (the study of aging).
Neonatal Dietitians
Neonatal dietitians provide individualized medical nutrition therapy for critically ill premature newborns. They are considered a part of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit's medical team. The neonatal dietitian performs clinical assessment of patients, designs nutrition protocols and quality improvement initiatives with the medical team, develops enteral and parenteral regimens, helps establish and promote lactation/breastfeeding guidelines and often oversees the management of infection prevention in the handling, storage, and delivery of nutritional products.
Pediatric Dietitians
Pediatric dietitians provide nutrition and health advice for infants, children, and adolescents. They focus on early nutritional needs, and often work closely with doctors, school health services, clinics, hospitals and government agencies, in developing and implementing treatment plans for children with eating disorders, food allergies, or any condition where a child's diet factors into the equation, such as childhood obesity.
Research Dietitians
Research dietitians may focus on social sciences or health services research, for example, investigate the impact of health policies or behaviour change, or evaluate program effectiveness. They may survey food-service systems management in order to guide quality improvement. Some research dietitians study the biochemical aspects of nutrient interaction within the body.[28] In universities, they also may have teaching responsibilities. Some clinical dietitians' roles involve research in addition to their patients care workload.
Administrative Dietitians
Administrative or management dietitians oversee and direct all aspects of clinical dietetics service, food policy and/or large-scale meal service operations in hospitals, government agencies, company cafeterias, prisons, and schools. They recruit, train and supervise employees of dietetics departments including dietitians and other personnel. They set department goals, policies and procedures; procurement, equipment and supplies; ensure safety and sanitation standards in foodservice; and administer budget management.
Business Dietitians
Business dietitians serve as resource people in food and nutrition through business, marketing and communications. Dietitians' expertise in nutrition is often solicited in the media — for example providing expert guest opinion on television and radio news or cooking shows, columnist for a newspaper or magazine, or resource for restaurants on recipe development and critique. Business dietitians may author books or corporate newsletters on nutrition and wellness. They also work as sales representatives for food manufacturing companies that provide nutritional supplements and tube feeding supplies.
Consultant Dietitians
Consultant dietitians are those who are in private practice or practice on a contractual basis with health care facilities or corporations, such as used in Australia, Canada and the United States. Consultant dietitians contract independently to provide nutrition or health related consultation and educational programs to individuals and health care facilities as well as sports teams, fitness clubs, and other health related businesses and corporations.