The UC Davis Medical Center Dietetic Internship is a full-time program with a concentration in Clinical Nutrition in an Academic Health System. The program accepts a maximum of six interns annually. We are proud to have over 100 interns who graduated since its origination in 2003. The program is managed by the Department of Food and Nutrition Services.

UC Davis Health and the UC Davis Campus are part of the larger University of California. They are overseen by the Regents of the University of California. UC Davis Health is pivotal in delivering health care to the inland Northern California. The medical center, located in Sacramento, is an extensive tertiary care teaching hospital that provides the highest level of specialty care in the region.

Mission

The mission of the UC Davis Medical Center Dietetic Internship is to offer comprehensive supervised practice learning experiences in a university tertiary health care center that:

  • Promote innovative, high quality patient-centered nutrition care
  • Foster a supportive, interdisciplinary educational environment
  • Use critical thinking and evidence-based practice as the foundation for solving complex problems and conducting performance improvement
  • Prepare graduates for entry-level practice and lifelong learning as registered dietitian nutritionists who demonstrate standards of professional performance and a commitment to the dietetics profession and community.

Philosophy and Methods

Central to our program mission and goals is our commitment to providing comprehensive supervised practice learning experiences in a university tertiary health care center to prepare graduates for entry-level practice and lifelong learning as registered dietitian nutritionists. Interns capitalize on the resources afforded by a teaching hospital environment during this 42-week supervised learning experience. The program is planned to meet a minimum of 1200 supervised practice hours which exceeds ACEND’s minimum requirement of 1000 supervised practice hours. Approximately 90% of the internship’s total scheduled hours are devoted to supervised practice experience, which supports our internship philosophy of learning by doing. Dietetic interns spend at least 65% of internship in inpatient and outpatient clinical nutrition rotations.

Didactics comprise the remaining 10% of internship hours, which include lecture-style and round table-based discussions. We emphasize the value of collaboration and teamwork, leadership and decision-making skills, problem-solving and critical thinking skills, and self-reflection in our planned learning activities. Our program plans a range of learning activities that support competency attainment, including direct patient care, interdisciplinary forums, management projects, and case study and journal club presentations. Interns assimilate and apply their new knowledge and skills using a variety of educational methods. In turn, our curriculum helps capitalize on each intern’s learning style and preferences.