Clinical dietitians assist patients in clinics, hospitals, private practices, prisons, nursing homes, and educational institutions. They develop and implement nutrition programs to improve or maintain the health of patients. They work with patients to determine their condition, dietary needs, preferences, and goals. Furthermore, they develop and implement standards for medical nutrition therapy to enable others to properly administer it to patients and monitor the patient's progress. Additionally, they update their nutrition plan accordingly. Besides that, they conduct research to stay updated on the latest nutrition and food health updates.
To become a clinical dietitian, you need at least a bachelor's degree in nutrition, dietetics, or a related field. You will need a state license to work. You must have previous experience in a related role. Also, you must possess interpersonal, analytical, multitasking, communication, and problem-solving skills. A clinical dietitian earns an average salary of $60,682 per annum. This varies from $43,000 to $85,000.
How to Become a Clinical Dietitian
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a clinical dietitian. For example, did you know that they make an average of $27.87 an hour? That's $57,962 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 11% and produce 8,000 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Clinical Dietitian Do
There are certain skills that many clinical dietitians have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed analytical skills, compassion and listening skills.
How To Become a Clinical Dietitian
If you're interested in becoming a clinical dietitian, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 72.9% of clinical dietitians have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 20.3% of clinical dietitians have master's degrees. Even though most clinical dietitians have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a clinical dietitian. When we researched the most common majors for a clinical dietitian, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on clinical dietitian resumes include associate degree degrees or doctoral degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a clinical dietitian. In fact, many clinical dietitian jobs require experience in a role such as dietetic internship. Meanwhile, many clinical dietitians also have previous career experience in roles such as dietitian or registered dietitian.
Clinical Dietitian Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of consultant you might progress to a role such as manager eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title food service director.
Average Salary for a Clinical Dietitian
What Am I Worth?
Top Colleges for Clinical Dietitians
1. University of Maryland - College Park
College Park, MD • Private
2. University of Georgia
Athens, GA • Private
3. Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN • Private
4. University of Delaware
Newark, DE • Private
5. Ohio State University
Columbus, OH • Private
6. Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA • Private
7. California State University - Chico
Chico, CA • Private
8. Cornell University
Ithaca, NY • Private
9. Texas Tech University
Lubbock, TX • Private
10. Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI • Private
Top Skills For a Clinical Dietitian
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 25.8% of clinical dietitians listed nutrition services on their resume, but soft skills such as analytical skills and compassion are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Clinical Dietitian Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Clinical Dietitian templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Clinical Dietitian resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Clinical Dietitian Demographics
Clinical Dietitian Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among clinical dietitians, 91.3% of them are women, while 8.7% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among clinical dietitians is White, which makes up 67.7% of all clinical dietitians.
- The most common foreign language among clinical dietitians is Spanish at 60.8%.
Online Courses For Clinical Dietitian That You May Like
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Learn about the role of nutrition in relation to diseases of the circulatory system and diabetes, which are major causes of death worldwide. You'll learn about the etiology of heart attacks, type 2 diabetes, stroke, other forms of cardiovascular diseases and how often these occur worldwide. You will learn about biological modifiable risk factors, such as blood pressure, blood cholesterol and obesity, and how they impact these diseases in a different way. After completing this course you will...
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Best States For a Clinical Dietitian
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a clinical dietitian. The best states for people in this position are California, New York, Oregon, and North Dakota. Clinical dietitians make the most in California with an average salary of $79,835. Whereas in New York and Oregon, they would average $70,597 and $64,785, respectively. While clinical dietitians would only make an average of $64,576 in North Dakota, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. New York
$70,597
Avg. Salary
2. Rhode Island
$62,097
Avg. Salary
3. North Dakota
$64,576
Avg. Salary
How Do Clinical Dietitian Rate Their Jobs?
Top Clinical Dietitian Employers
Most Common Employers For Clinical Dietitian
| Rank  | Company  | Average Salary  | Hourly Rate  | Job Openings  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | HCR ManorCare | $61,455 | $29.55 | 35 |
| 2 | Genesis HealthCare | $58,964 | $28.35 | 29 |
| 3 | TouchPoint Medical | $57,962 | $27.87 | 19 |
| 4 | St. Joseph Medical Center | $57,962 | $27.87 | 16 |
| 5 | Memorial Hospital | $57,962 | $27.87 | 15 |
| 6 | Dietitians On Demand | $57,962 | $27.87 | 15 |
| 7 | Healthcare Services Group | $57,476 | $27.63 | 38 |
| 8 | Methodist Hospital Of Henderson, Kentucky | $56,315 | $27.07 | 30 |
| 9 | Kindred Healthcare | $56,127 | $26.98 | 17 |
| 10 | Kaiser Permanente | $55,647 | $26.75 | 19 |
Clinical Dietitian Videos
