​Hello everyone! My name is Gianina Padula, and I am a region 1 intern based in Boston, MA. I am currently in my community rotation, where I am completing hours between two organizations: Fresh Truck and Daily Table. I additionally devote time each week to prepping hot meals and distributing them to populations experiencing homelessness, as well as doing community fridge drops. I am in the process of earning my master’s in dietetics through the URI program that Sodexo offers. My internship has been flying by so far, and I have continuously felt supported by the entire Sodexo community.  
 
My first two rotations were food service management and my wellness concentration. My favorite parts were interacting with the students and organizing events that get them thinking about nutrition’s role in areas they may not have associated it with before, such as mental health, body image, and more.
 
Some specific events that I organized during these two rotations were the following:
I hosted a live cooking demo featuring a dish that highlighted nutrients to help mental health. The dish incorporated zinc, folate, vitamin D, and vitamin B12. It was also plant-based and free of top allergens so that it was safe for as many students as possible.

I assembled an interactive bulletin board display for November with the theme of Intuitive Eating. Students were asked to write down how they will practice Intuitive Eating that month. The board also included the principles of Intuitive Eating, suggestions on how to revamp their Instagram feed to gear it more toward a healthy mindset around eating, and holiday recipe ideas including education about the nutritional benefits of featured ingredients.

In November, I created a “Sticker for a Sticker” tabling event focusing on Body Positivity where students received a sticker in exchange for writing something they love about themselves on a sticky note. I was blown away by how excited students got over this activity, and it warmed my heart seeing them reflect on what they love about themselves amidst the heavy pushing of diet culture and Westernized beauty standards in today’s society.
 
Lastly, I organized a Paint and Sip event where mocktails were served and students learned about the benefits of limiting their alcohol consumption. This was quite a popular event, with over 100 students signed up. The mocktails chosen were a mojito and a rosé, and they were a huge hit! This event felt the most impactful to me, because I know how prevalent binge drinking can be on college campuses. It was so awesome to see the students get excited about mocktails and be open to learning about the benefits of limiting alcohol.
 
If I could offer advice to future interns, it would be to always remember that you have a support system. The internship can feel overwhelming and extremely tiring at times; but as long as you are working a little toward your larger goals each day, it will go by smoothly. 

My name is Tieara Smith, and I am a dietetic intern from region 9. I currently reside in Chicago, IL and I am completing my clinical rotations. Though I am finishing up my clinical rotations, I had the opportunity to plan and coordinate activities for national nutrition month. I began by choosing several different recipes that were popular among different cultures. Each recipe had a different grain that medical professionals had the opportunity to identify in a game of Spin the Wheel. After professionals selected the correct grain, they were to locate where on the world map the grain is most abundant. I loved this activity because I got the chance to speak with many people that I would have never encountered otherwise.

​I have planned many other activities for employees to engage in during my other rotations as well. My favorite part about each project is learning more about the history of each site. I am African American, and many other people of my race share how they have seen an increase in diversity throughout these locations. I think this is crucial and shows how Sodexo has prioritized diversity in the field of dietetics. I am so grateful for this experience, and I cannot wait to learn and collaborate with other professionals in my upcoming rotations. 

​Aloha everyone. My name is Mari McClenney and I am a region 12 Sodexo dietetic intern completing my internship on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. My internship experience has opened my eyes to the many different career paths within the field of dietetics. The highlight of my internship has been my leadership rotation, where I explored the role of a culinary dietitian. I had a wonderful opportunity to work at the Culinary Institute of the Pacific.

​During my leadership rotation, I helped teach the Nutritional Cuisines class by giving lectures, doing cooking demonstrations, and provided support to the students with their weekly cooking projects. It was so rewarding to see the growth in nutritional knowledge the students obtained by the end of the course. My leadership concentration allowed me a lot of flexibility in the learning objectives I wanted to achieve. One of my learning objectives was to create several Hawaiian-Pacific fusion plant-based recipes inspired by famous local dishes. Doing my concentration in leadership was a great way to customize my own internship, making it such a fulfilling learning experience.

Currently, I am in my food service management rotation and have been having a blast! I recently completed my retail marketing project, called “Plant-Based Plates from Around the World” featuring a flavorful plant-based entrée from another country. For my special, I created a Vietnamese-inspired Lemongrass Tofu Salad with vermicelli noodles, sautéed onions, pickled carrots and daikon, and a sweet chili vinaigrette. My preceptor has been such an awesome mentor throughout my project and has taught me a lot about the management point of view, such as food costing, ordering, and receiving products.

​So far, my dietetic internship has been a wonderful and educational experience. I continue to learn something new every day, ultimately preparing me for my future career as a dietitian. As a mom of two young children, I was nervous before starting my internship on how I could balance everything. However, the Sodexo dietetic internship is individualized when it comes to scheduling and selecting rotation sites, making it very manageable. I’ve learned the key to doing well in the internship is to do something new each day and stay organized. My advice is to future interns is to find your motivation and remind yourself that you can do this, even if it means stepping outside of your comfort zone! I’m so grateful to be a Sodexo dietetic intern and am excited to see where this journey takes me! 

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During my food service rotation, I was able to create an event for National Nutrition Month. The theme for this year is “Celebrate a World of Flavors” so I chose to make a smoothie with Lucuma, a fruit from Peru, which is where I was born.

​I provided nutrition education to the employees, and they got to learn about Lucuma’s health benefits and the importance of adding antioxidants to our diet. At first, I was a bit nervous because not everyone likes to try new things, especially something they’ve never heard of. However, I was pleased to see everyone’s reaction after they tried the Lucuma smoothie, especially because they may have never tried it or even heard of it if it wasn’t because of my event. Not only did they love the flavor, but also, they were very excited to read the board I created with all the benefits this fruit has. I received many positive comments and was happy to see that most people took a flyer with important nutrition information. I really felt like my project made an impact on the employees, and that was very rewarding for me. 

Hello! I’m Rachel, dietetic intern from Minnesota. In my internship so far, I have completed my clinical nutrition management, patient services, clinical, food service management, and some of my community hours. Soon, I will be finishing with my concentration of leadership, long term care, and more community hours. This picture is of me in my food service management rotation. However, I am going to share some of my takeaways from other rotations.

​During my clinical rotations, I most enjoyed getting to know patient stories and interesting medical histories. I also loved charting. So far, I feel that this is where I had the most growth as a future RD. From starting with providing diet education to providing nutrition support recommendations in the ICU, these are skills you can only develop in the dietetic internship. There were overwhelming moments for sure, but after completing staff relief and thinking back to my first week, it was cool that the progress I made was very evident. I rotated within two hospitals and worked in various units such as cardiac, med-surg, GI, ICU, behavioral health, substance abuse, etc. I found that the variety and the challenge always kept it interesting and made the days fly by.
 
At this point in time, the highlight of my internship has been completing some community hours with an inpatient eating disorder center in a hospital setting. I was able to learn the role of an RD in assessing patients with eating disorders, providing appropriate nutrition, and assisting with mealtimes. In addition, I was able to observe how the interdisciplinary team members worked closely together. I have an interest working in this area of dietetics. Therefore, this experience was useful for me to gain insight into a day in the life of an eating disorder RD. Now that I have learned about treatment in a hospital setting, I have further interest in seeing residential and outpatient settings as well. The flexibility of setting up your own community and concentration hours has allowed me to experience this.
 
The next rotation I will complete is for my concentration, leadership. In my leadership rotation, I will explore a non-traditional RD role as part of a research and development team at a food production company. I am excited to work next to food scientists and participate in recipe development and social media.
 
Some tips I have for incoming dietetic interns are:

1. Find your individual way that helps you stay organized early on. – I wish I would have prioritized this in the beginning so I would have felt less chaos.
2. Set personal due dates for your assignments. – When spending 8 hours a day working on site, it was easy for me to put my assignments on the back burner.
3. Take some time to think about settings you would potentially want to work in and seek those out where possible (ex: community or concentration). – This may give you direction when you start to look for jobs.

 

Hi there! I am Kim Ferrara, a Sodexo dietetic intern from region 4 (New Jersey). My internship journey has been a unique one, beginning with a little taste of everything. In my very first week, I was introduced to diet office operations, kitchen duties and inventory, and clinical nutrition in a long-term care setting. So, my first piece of advice for starting out as a dietetic intern is to be flexible! Use your schedule as a guide to keep you on track while being open to the changing needs of your precepting facilities. Real-world things (retirements, maternity leaves, resignations, etc…) happen, so always be open minded to helping your preceptors and clinical nutrition managers when you can. As much as we might hate to admit, we all learn the most outside of our comfort zones.
 
Before starting as a dietetic intern, I had been working in the supermarket industry for nearly 8 years. As my food and nutrition knowledge grew, I began working as a food safety specialist to ensure my stores were providing safe, healthy food, while also being able to collaborate with the in-store registered dietitians on a regular basis. When it came time to start my rotations, I was a food safety expert who was very familiar with retail nutrition but had zero clinical nutrition experience (scary…right?). Making sure my preceptors for both foodservice and clinical rotations knew my background has made all the difference in my learning experience. We all have different levels of experience and background understanding, but this is exactly what makes the field of nutrition so diverse! So, don’t be afraid to use your nutrition strengths and interests to optimize what you take away from these special practice hours. This is your one and only journey to becoming an RD!
 
Clinical rotations may be the most daunting of them all, but I can assure you that this is where your nutrition knowledge will blossom into a strong foundation you will take with you to whatever area of dietetics you desire. My most recent clinical preceptor offered me an essential reminder: “Every dietitian may have their own way of doing things, but don’t get caught up in the differences. If you take one single method or idea that you like from each preceptor, you can start building the dietitian you will one day be.” So, take it one day, one preceptor, and one topic at a time.
 
And most importantly, as students of nutrition know best, it can be tempting to fill up your plate. Rotations can be exhausting (in the best way), so be sure to leave room for relaxation and of course snacks. The time goes fast, and the only way to make the most of it is to stay fueled! You’ve got this!

Hello! My name is Lisa Huang, a native New Yorker and an intern in region 3 (NYC). Sodexo has placed me to do my clinical nutrition management, clinical (basic, intermediate, advanced, staff relief), patient services, and concentration rotations in Brooklyn, New York. So far, I’ve completed my clinical nutrition management rotation and am more than halfway through my clinical rotation. My site has been great; filled with amazing staff, preceptors, and managers. 
 
My first week of clinical practice was a little nerve-wracking, but I’ve slowly built up more and more confidence over the weeks to speak to patients. Unlike our DPD programs where we learn 1 disease state at a time, you’ll rarely see a patient with just 1 disease condition. An average patient will have at least 3 co-morbidities, making your assessment important to best help your patient. I’ve been exposed to a wide variety of disease states in just my first month and it has been an extremely positive experience to be part of a multidisciplinary team here at SUNY Downstate. 
 
Aside from tremendous career opportunities, what attracted me to Sodexo’s dietetic internship is an intern’s ability to put a personal touch to it. This is made possible through a concentration and community site(s) of your choice. In addition to my clinical hours (Mon-Thurs), I’m also clocking hours at an eating disorder private practice every Friday. I’m on track to do a transplant concentration via leadership with SUNY’s transplant RD very soon. It was extremely cool to hear what past interns have done with their concentration during the application process, and now I’m here putting my own spark on it. I wasn’t initially interested in transplant while I was in school but since being at SUNY Downstate, I’ve become more interested in clinical specialties and decided to jump at this rare opportunity.
 
My advice to incoming interns is to keep an open mind, your interests might change and that’s okay, that’s why you’re here. If you make a mistake, that’s okay -- you’re still learning, and your preceptors will understand. Ask questions, connect, and do your best. 

Hi! My name is Sarah Adamchak, a region 4 intern based out of New Jersey. I completed just over two months of the internship and am absolutely loving it thus far! In clinicals, I learned great methods to effectively communicate with patients, be confident in my knowledge, and quickly develop a strong work relationship with my preceptors. When I first started, I was slightly intimidated walking the halls of the hospital. However, I quickly became accustomed to how friendly and helpful the entire staff was and felt right at home. One of my biggest takeaways from the internship so far is developing professional communication with my preceptors in an environment where any and all questions are welcome. Regardless of how challenging an environment the hospital may be, my preceptor always reminds me that we have to find smiles and laughter throughout our days.
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It is one thing to learn about diseases and potential nutrition treatments from a textbook but a totally different ball game when having to work with a patient in what are very real scenarios. With that said, interviewing patients has become a very pleasant normality during my time at the hospital. I remember just before my first patient interview I was extremely nervous and afraid to mess up. However, I quickly realized that more often than not, many patients love to just have a newer face to talk to and are interested in nutrition education. After many patient interviews, along with guidance from my preceptors, I gained further confidence in my skills. Since being in advanced clinicals, I have realized that the skills and knowledge I have acquired from the start are still helpful today.

In between my clinicals, I was given the opportunity to complete my patient services rotation and get the behind the scenes view on how the kitchen works. It was awesome to see all the unique roles that play a part in providing exceptional service for patient meals. My favorite task was doing patient orders and doing everything I could to get them excited for their next meal. I enjoyed working with the kitchen staff and getting to know each of them on a very friendly first name basis.
 
As for some advice during clinicals, I would emphasize that it is ok, even encouraged, to ask questions since we are here to learn. It is important to embrace new challenges and to keep a positive mindset. Patients tend to be very open, even eager, to communicate with young professions like ourselves. Putting nutrition aside, it is always nice to listen to patient stories as well as giving a helping hand through harder times. All of the different aspects of our day to day lives as an intern will stick with us and allow us to grow into becoming Registered Dietitians in the near future. 

Hi everyone! My name is Dekeira. I am a region 4 intern from Jersey City, and I am currently completing my intermediate clinical rotations. Clinicals have been extremely challenging but have also been very rewarding as I am able to see myself progress from basic to advanced. Prior to starting basic clinicals, I felt very prepared on the general material that was expected of me to know for this rotation. When I actually started basic clinicals, I realized that although I may know all of this information, I needed to figure out, “How can I apply this knowledge here?”  Clinical dietetics is all about critical thinking, prioritizing your focus on what’s more important & applying knowledge. It’s one thing to know information on a disease state, but as a clinical dietitian, you have to be able to seriously multitask and focus. You are going to have to counsel patients who come from all different backgrounds with extensive previous medical/surgical history and you, as the dietitian, will have to use your clinical judgment in order to figure out which problem is the most prominent issue at the moment that you can address and provide a solution for in order to complete your ADIME.
 
Currently, I have been seeing 4-5 patients a day by myself and overall, it has been a very positive experience for me. I enjoy collaborating with healthcare staff such as therapists and nurses as it has enhanced my communication skills. I love meeting with patients and getting to know them on a more personal level while they’re in the hospital, while also being there to assist them at a very stressful time in their lives. I’ve noticed that when I talk to patients on a more personable level, they are more willing to open up and talk with you. Most times, it is usually a pleasant conversation that leads to building a rapport with the patient while they are in the hospital. It is nice to be able to have a positive influence on someone during their hospital stay, especially if they request to see you again. Throughout clinicals, I have experienced and seen a lot of things for the first time, such as a bedside swallow evaluation, using interpreter services for non-English speaking patients, complicated ICU cases, telehealth counseling sessions, wounds, colostomy bags, and much more. It has been a very eye-opening experience to see what really goes on behind the scenes in a hospital. It can be a little intimidating at times but forcing yourself to break out of your comfort zone is the only way you are going to be able to learn as much as you can.
      
A few tips I recommend for clinical rotations:

1. Study or read over your notes every day! Especially before you start a new rotation. You may encounter a new disease state almost every day and you will not have time to do personal studying or research during your shift.
2. Take as many notes as possible during your rotations & keep them organized!  You will probably receive a lot of handouts at your internship. Get a binder, section it based on your rotation level & add all of your notes and handouts. Review them every night.
3. Keep a to-do list & set reminders/alarms for all of your assignments/task’s due dates, class days & meetings in order to stay on top of all your internship (and/or masters) assignments.

 

​Hi! My name is Yasaman Mirafzali and I’m a region 4 intern with the Fall 2021 cohort. A few weeks ago, I completed the week-long virtual orientation. It was extremely helpful in preparing us for what to expect during each step of our internship and providing little words of wisdom I find myself reflecting on daily, such as “do something everyday” and “be sure to make time for self-care.” The support and dedication to making sure each intern is successful is vividly apparently and well beyond anything I could have imagined.
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