The whole process of starting a dietetic internship is scary. You’re not quite sure what to expect, but are unbelievably excited that you even landed a DI. There’s a strong drive to do as well as you can, and that, coupled with not really knowing what to expect, can make for a really stressful situation. I know I had a lot of anxieties about what to expect when I found out I was matched, so let’s dive in to some of the things I wish I knew before starting my dietetic internship.
You’re going to be confused…a lot.
This might go without saying, but I was definitely confused during my internship a lot more than I anticipated. I expected to at least have a basic understanding of everything after four years of learning about nutrition in undergrad. Nutrition is a very vast discipline, so there’s a lot you still don’t know. Some days I felt like I knew everything, others I felt like I knew absolutely nothing. It’s hard to have those days where you feel like you have absolutely no idea what’s going on, but your preceptors expect it. They know that you’re not going to know everything, so you just need to learn to deal with the discomfort of not knowing something in the moment and then go look it up later.
Outside of just nutrition though, there are many other confusing moments in a DI. Where to park at different places, how to find bathrooms and break rooms, there’s just a lot of newness thrown at you all at once that makes your initial time in any rotation a little tumultuous.
Your schedule isn’t going to make any sense.
Now, I’ve always had a pretty hectic schedule. However, the main difference is that even though my schedule was insane, I always knew what time I needed to show up somewhere and what time I’d get to leave and go home. While some of my rotations during my DI were like that, many were not. There were quite a few where I’d show up in the morning and not know what time I was going to get to go home until my preceptor said, “oh, you can leave for the day, see you tomorrow”. I also had some rotations where I only knew what time I was expected to come in the day before. A friend or relative would ask me, “what time are you going to be done tomorrow?”, and I’d have to answer “I honestly don’t know”. As a very type A personality person, not knowing my schedule was very stressful in the beginning. It took some time to get used to it and just go with the flow.
Your preceptors don’t know everything.
Looking back, this is obvious to me, but starting out I kind of assumed that my preceptors were the ultimate know-alls of nutrition. And yes, they were all fantastic dietitians and knew so much, but you also have to remember that nutrition is a constantly evolving field. That’s part of the reason why we have this internship, not just for us to learn, but for us to help bridge the gap between current dietitians and all the new research we learn in school. It was intimidating for me to share my knowledge with my preceptors, but they were all really receptive. They genuinely wanted to hear about what I learned in school and what I know. Once you realize that the intern-preceptor relationship is a two-way street you gain a lot of confidence in your budding skills as a soon-to-be dietitian.
It’s going to be really intense, but you can handle it.
To be fair, I probably heard this a thousand times before starting my DI. It just never really sank in until I was in the thick of it. It’s intense. It’s stressful and exhausting and absolutely insane at certain moments, but you can handle it. I think a lot of the time, people try to explain a DI as one or the other. It’s either really hard OR you’re going to be just fine. The reality is that it’s both. There will be days when you feel stupid and useless. You’ll wonder why you ever thought you could do this in the first place. There were days when I genuinely questioned how I was ever going to get through it and then BOOM–it was over and here I am on the other side. My DI was the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my educational career, but I did it. The important thing is to remember that you can do this. There are also lots of people you can use for support both inside and outside of your DI program.
You’ll surprise yourself constantly.
One of my biggest surprises was that I do, in fact, like clinical dietetics. I never thought I was going to hate it, but it was definitely my most dreaded rotation to start. I had basically zero clinical dietetics experience during my undergrad (to see what kinds of dietetics experiences I had in undergrad, check out “Before the Beginning”). Since I didn’t have much experience, I was scared to start my clinical rotation. I thought I’d be terrible at it. My clinical rotation actually went really well, and I loved almost everything about it. While it hasn’t surpassed other areas as my favorite, I could see myself as a clinical dietitian in the future.
If you’ve finished a DI, what were some things you wish you knew before starting? What surprised you the most about your DI experience?