Internship Rotations

The internship is a full time, 50 week program, and interns are scheduled to work approximately 40 hours per week, usually Monday through Friday. Classroom time and field trips may be scheduled within the 40 hours or outside of the regular daily schedule. Interns are also scheduled to work some weekends and holidays. Please refer to the "Summary of Supervised Practice and Didactic Hours" for the internship schedule.

Orientation

The official start date of the UC San Diego Medical Dietetic Internship is the last week in August each year
The first week of the internship is called Orientation
During Orientation, dietetic interns are introduced to the UC San Diego Medical Center campus, program preceptors, and fellow dietetic interns
The primary purpose of Orientation is to educate dietetic interns about program expectations, policies, and procedures and provide dietetic interns with baseline medical nutrition therapy education
Dietetic interns can expect to receive individual rotation schedules for the year at the end of Orientation week

Clinical Nutrition

A strong clinical nutrition department allows for opportunity to provide nutrition care for complex patients across the life span
The Nutrition Therapy concentration offers experience in management and supervision of virtually all medical conditions
Dietetic intern will spend 18 weeks in inpatient clinical rotation and 4 weeks of clinical staff relief

Experiences will most likely include, but are not limited to, the following specialty areas:

Cardiac
Telemetry
Transplant
Orthopedic
General Surgery
General Medicine
Family
Maternal Care Center
Urology
Oncology
IMU/Step Down
Thornton Bone Marrow Transplant
Neonatal Intensive Care
Medical Intensive Care
Surgical Intensive Care
Critical Care
Burn Intensive Care
Diet Office

Food Service Management

Dietetic Interns will spend eight weeks in food service/management rotations

Experiences will most likely include, but are not limited to, the following areas:

Patient Food Services
Production
Cafeteria
Human Resources
Financial Management
Food Service/Clinical Nutrition Management projects

Ambulatory/Community Nutrition

Dietetic interns will spend 10 weeks in Outpatient/Community Nutrition rotations
Meals on Wheels

Experiences will most likely include but are not limited to the following specialty areas:

General Outpatient Nutrition Clinic
Transplant
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)
Cystic Fibrosis
Burn
Dialysis
Moore’s Oncology
Neurology
Pediatric/Adult HIV
Dialysis
Diabetic OB
Bariatric Lap Band Program
Eating Disorders.

Research

Dietetic interns will spend two weeks in either of the two research rotations, including the hospital’s Clinical and Translational Research Institute, UC San Diego Health Sciences and/or the UCSD Department of Family and Preventive Medicine.

Elective

Dietetic interns will spend two weeks in an elective rotation of their choice (within UCSD affiliations).

Staff Relief

Dietetic interns will spend approximately five weeks in staff relief during their food service management and clinical nutrition rotation.

Vacation

Dietetic interns receive one week of vacation at the end of December each year. Each dietetic intern may be expected to work some of the UCSD designated holidays (excluding Christmas, New Years and Thanksgiving).

Facilities

The majority of internship experiences take place at UC San Diego Medical Center and Thornton Hospital, both located in San Diego
UC San Diego Medical Center is a 386-bed hospital and primary hospital for the University of California San Diego School of Medicine
Thornton Hospital is a 119-bed hospital and located approximately eight miles from UC San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest
Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center provides inpatient heart and stroke care in single cutting edge location