Rotations & Practice Sites

We provide exposure many different practice settings, but our focus is clinical nutrition. An example schedule can be found here.

                                                                                  

Food Service

​

Our program start in food service. 

 

Clinical Nutrition

Our clinical rotations are designed so that the complexity disease states increases with your experience. Twenty-two weeks of acute hospital experience is provided. Disease states include, but are not limited to

• Cardiovascular disease

• Pulmonary disease

• Complex wound care

• Diabetes Mellitus Type I, Type II, and Gestational

• Hepatic disease

• Pancreatic disease

• Cancer

• Critical illness and sepsis

We believe that patient outcomes are improved by awareness of social determinants of health, interdisciplinary care teams, and providing continuity of care.

​

Additional clinical nutrition experiences (one week each) include:

• Bariatrics at Tucson Weight Loss Surgery

• Pediatrics at Tucson Medical Center and  Children's Clinics

• Long Term Care at Park Avenue Health and Rehabilitation Center

• Outpatient Renal at DaVita Dialysis

 

Other Rotations

• Community (1 week) at Pima County WIC.  In the Women, Infants and Children program, interns work with dietitians to educate low income pregnant and breastfeeding women and mothers of young children on the importance of food and nutrition.

• Sports Nutrition (4 weeks) at University of Arizona.

• Research (2 weeks) at St. Mary’s Hospital.  In the research rotation, interns complete an outcomes measurement project related to nutrition support provision in the ICU, which provides them practical experience in scientific literature review, study development, data collection and analysis, and authoring a professional paper.

• School Nutrition (2 weeks) at the Tucson Unified School District.  The rotation provides additional experience with the pediatric population, as interns develop and present a nutrition lesson to elementary school students.  Interns also learn about food service and government food and nutrition regulations related to educational institutions.

• Clinical Management (1 week) at St. Mary’s Hospital.  Interns learn about the job functions of a Clinical Nutrition Manager and complete projects related to assessment of clinical staff competency, coding and billing for nutrition services, and analysis of productivity and staffing data.

• Private Practice and Self-Promotion Learn about social media promotion and marketing your services.

​