What does a clinical dietitian do?
A clinical dietitian is responsible for providing quality nutritional care for patients by monitoring their current health conditions, advising nutritional and dietary supplements to maintain their healthy lifestyle, and speed up their recovery process. Clinical dietitians often coordinate with other medical professionals to assess food choices and develop nutrition programs for the patients. A clinical dietitian must have excellent knowledge of the medical industry to offer the best services to the patients and accurately handle their inquiries and concerns.
Clinical dietitian responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real clinical dietitian resumes:
- Provide personalize nutrition counseling to clients managing diabetes, lipid disorders, hypertension & obesity.
- Collaborate with diabetes educator to achieve AADE accreditation for the diabetes education program and to provide education as an instructor.
- Develop nutrition assessments and provide individual nutrition interventions for post-surgical/medical patients entering rehabilitation.
- Provide nutritional care for general medical population; assess nutritional status of ICU patients and implement nutritional intervention.
- Perform nutrition evaluations and education for rehab patients; complete MDS forms and participate in interdisciplinary team meetings.
- Sole nutrition department member participating in daily and weekly integrative team rounds for oncology and high risk maternity patients.
- Individualize nutrition prescriptions for oncology patients with complex nutritional needs; mitigate treatment side effects and revitalize quality of life.
- Instruct inpatient and outpatients on variety of diets including diabetes, cardiac, renal, GI disorders and food-drug interaction.
- Maintain records of patients' diet orders, supplement orders, dining locations, food allergies, and food preferences.
- Perform nutritional interventions when necessary as indicated by resident assessment through use of MDS.
- Position involve daily interaction with patients plus professional coordination with physicians and other medical staff and excellent presentation and communication skills.
- Develop and facilitate nutrition education programs, counsele outpatients, instruct patients in group classes, and complete quality assurance measures.
- Provide diabetes education for newly diagnose diabetics including insulin starts, and provide education for those previously diagnose requiring further instruction.
- Participate in interdisciplinary biweekly meetings for rehabilitation unit.
- Audit team participant to ensure clinics are in compliance with CMS guidelines.
Clinical dietitian skills and personality traits
We calculated that 35% of Clinical Dietitians are proficient in Patients, Patient Care, and Medical Nutrition Therapy. They’re also known for soft skills such as Analytical skills, Compassion, and Listening skills.
We break down the percentage of Clinical Dietitians that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Patients, 35%
Position involved daily interaction with patients plus professional coordination with physicians and other medical staff and excellent presentation and communication skills.
- Patient Care, 9%
Communicate nutrition assessment findings and interventions via medical record documentation, patient care rounds and/or verbal communication with health care staff.
- Medical Nutrition Therapy, 7%
Monitored nutritional care, managed physician-ordered therapeutic diets, provided medical nutrition therapy and education to patients as well as documentation.
- Home Health, 5%
Counseled and provided medical nutrition therapy for home health-care company clients.
- Nutrition Services, 3%
Make recommendations to Nursing Services, Nutrition Services and physicians/nurse practitioners on residents' nutritional care and company standards and procedures.
- Diabetes, 3%
Provided diabetes education for newly diagnosed diabetics including insulin starts, and provided education for those previously diagnosed requiring further instruction.
Common skills that a clinical dietitian uses to do their job include "patients," "patient care," and "medical nutrition therapy." You can find details on the most important clinical dietitian responsibilities below.
Analytical skills. The most essential soft skill for a clinical dietitian to carry out their responsibilities is analytical skills. This skill is important for the role because "dietitians and nutritionists must keep up with food and nutrition research." Additionally, a clinical dietitian resume shows how their duties depend on analytical skills: "collected and analyzed data for the jcaho quality control indicators. "
Compassion. Another essential skill to perform clinical dietitian duties is compassion. Clinical dietitians responsibilities require that "dietitians and nutritionists must be caring and empathetic when helping clients address health and dietary issues and any related emotions." Clinical dietitians also use compassion in their role according to a real resume snippet: "demonstrated proficiency with speedy and accurate nutrition assessment, compassionate bedside manner, and cooperative teamwork with multidisciplinary team. "
Listening skills. Another skill that relates to the job responsibilities of clinical dietitians is listening skills. This skill is critical to many everyday clinical dietitian duties, as "dietitians and nutritionists must listen carefully to understand clients’ goals and concerns." This example from a resume shows how this skill is used: "collaborated and communicated effectively with the nurses including participating in patient rounds and discharge planning. "
Organizational skills. A big part of what clinical dietitians do relies on "organizational skills." You can see how essential it is to clinical dietitian responsibilities because "dietitians and nutritionists must prepare and maintain many types of records for multiple clients." Here's an example of how this skill is used from a resume that represents typical clinical dietitian tasks: "attended professional conferences and participated in organizational/department committees which are committed to improving client/patient care and standards of practice. "
Problem-solving skills. A commonly-found skill in clinical dietitian job descriptions, "problem-solving skills" is essential to what clinical dietitians do. Clinical dietitian responsibilities rely on this skill because "dietitians and nutritionists must evaluate the health status of clients and determine appropriate food choices to improve overall health or manage disease." You can also see how clinical dietitian duties rely on problem-solving skills in this resume example: "investigated patient complaints and provided customized solution to recover patient satisfaction on daily basis. "
Speaking skills. While "speaking skills" is last on this skills list, don't underestimate its importance to clinical dietitian responsibilities. Much of what a clinical dietitian does relies on this skill, seeing as "dietitians and nutritionists must explain complicated topics in a way that people can understand." Here is a resume example of how this skill is used in the everyday duties of clinical dietitians: "created and presented nutrition education materials for outpatient classes. "
The three companies that hire the most clinical dietitians are:
- Aramark93 clinical dietitians jobs
- Fresenius Medical Care North America Holdings Limited Partnership75 clinical dietitians jobs
- Geisinger Medical Center64 clinical dietitians jobs
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Compare different clinical dietitians
Clinical dietitian vs. Food adviser
Nutrition specialists are skilled professionals who possess detailed knowledge of foods that are necessary for human health and growth. These specialists are required to provide comprehensive nutrition services to patients who are admitted to community health centers and specialty clinics for medical nutrition therapy. They must create diets and meal plans for patients based on their medical and dietary needs. Nutrition specialists must also organize community outreach efforts and other funded nutrition programs to encourage participation from professionals and lay groups.
While similarities exist, there are also some differences between clinical dietitians and food adviser. For instance, clinical dietitian responsibilities require skills such as "patients," "patient care," "medical nutrition therapy," and "home health." Whereas a food adviser is skilled in "facility operations," "logistics," "food service," and "food preparation." This is part of what separates the two careers.
On average, food advisers reach lower levels of education than clinical dietitians. Food advisers are 11.8% less likely to earn a Master's Degree and 1.1% more likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Clinical dietitian vs. Nutrition specialist
Nutrition interns are individuals who are on the job training for the tasks performed by licensed nutritionists or dieticians. The interns provide a nutrition care process that includes prescription of parenteral and enteral recommendations and analysis of laboratory values. They prepare a case study presentation that applies evidence-based guidelines and nutrition care process research. It is also part of their responsibilities to provide nutrition services, meal plans, and lesson plans.
While some skills are similar in these professions, other skills aren't so similar. For example, resumes show us that clinical dietitian responsibilities requires skills like "home health," "nutrition care process," "patient satisfaction," and "patient education." But a nutrition specialist might use other skills in their typical duties, such as, "pet," "nutritional care," "nutrition education," and "rd."
Nutrition specialists earn a lower average salary than clinical dietitians. But nutrition specialists earn the highest pay in the health care industry, with an average salary of $58,810. Additionally, clinical dietitians earn the highest salaries in the health care with average pay of $56,882 annually.Average education levels between the two professions vary. Nutrition specialists tend to reach lower levels of education than clinical dietitians. In fact, they're 10.0% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 1.1% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Clinical dietitian vs. Nutrition internship
The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, clinical dietitians are more likely to have skills like "patient care," "home health," "nutrition services," and "patient satisfaction." But a nutrition internship is more likely to have skills like "nutrition education programs," "rd," "food safety," and "student athletes."
Nutrition interns typically earn lower educational levels compared to clinical dietitians. Specifically, they're 10.1% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 0.3% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Clinical dietitian vs. Nutrition counselor
Types of clinical dietitian
Updated January 8, 2025
