My placement experience

Some courses have placements as a compulsory part of the modules and others have it as an option. It is a compulsory part of my course to complete a placement year to gain essential skills and competencies required for a dietitian to become qualified from the Health and Care Professions Council. We are assigned to different Trusts across the West, North/East Yorkshire or Northern England. I was assigned to Leeds and York Partnership Foundation Trust last year for a month, Newcastle Nutrition for three months and now I am in Sunderland doing another part of my placement. The first placement was mainly to observe and shadow dietitians, while for the other two placements I have been able to gain hands on experience and use my dietetic knowledge from university to help patients.

My life as a student dietitian

The placement experience is like a whole new world to me. Every day I experience different things, ranging from seeing patients with various conditions in clinics/wards to writing reports and case notes for record. I have been placed in different specialties that I have never thought that a dietitian could be working in. I have been working and shadowing dietitians in many specialist areas: stroke, intensive care, allergy, coeliac disease, diabetes, renal, gastrointestinal, and more. It is also eye opening to see how different dietitians conduct their own style of consultation, so it can help me to build my own style that will be beneficial to my future career. Moreover, due to the pandemic, things in the industry have changed. Many face to face consultations have been replaced by telephone consultations. It is also something my dietitians and I have been learning together and is really useful to experience this in an industry setting so that I feel prepared for when I graduate.

My favourite moments

The best part about being a student dietitian is communicating with different patients and learning how to communicate with different types of people. Understanding the patient’s conditions and listening to their stories from their perspectives allows me to use my evidence-based knowledge from university, to tailor dietary advice that can fit into their lives which are achievable. The most rewarding thing for me is seeing patients who improve day by day and how pleased they are to see how my dietary advice can help with their health conditions and eating and drinking. This motivates me further and supports my career decision to become a good dietitian.

My other roles

Other than seeing patients for consultations, I also have different roles, such as doing training for other healthcare professionals, group education session and community projects. I once had an experience to do training with the medical students and introduce nutritional supplements and nutrition pathway in the hospital. It was always great to share my nutritional knowledge to other healthcare professionals and learn together.   

Tips when on placement

• Don’t be afraid to ask your supervisors about anything you’re not sure about! Being on placement is an opportunity to learn more than what you would reading from a book or paper.
• Try to get feedback from your supervisors so you can know what you are lacking and how you can improve next time.