What does a registered dietitian do?
A Registered Dietitian assesses the health of individual patients with medical conditions such as diabetes or renal failure. They work in hospitals, doctors' offices, nursing homes, or other care facilities.
Registered dietitian responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real registered dietitian resumes:
- Help patients maintain nutritional adequacy while managing food allergies.
- Manage the anemia status of patients by reviewing necessary lab data and initiating or adjusting medication doses.
- Manage the in-store dietitian program providing nutrition education, culinary workshops, food demonstrations, and nutritional assessments.
- Develop and conduct weight loss programs; provide nutritional counseling for cardiac rehabilitation patients.
- Diet education to nonsurgical patients on eating disorders, diabetes and other nutrition relate conditions.
- Cover all topics ranging from weight management to oncology.
- Assess and counsele outpatient clients refer by hospital physicians on diabetes, adult and pediatric obesity, GI disorders and oncology.
- Specialize in weight management, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and childhood obesity programs
- Assess nutritional status of ESRD patients to determine appropriate nutrition intervention and recommendation.
- Develop and deliver programs for educating patients and family members regarding nutritional issues specific to the ESRD population.
- Complete nutrition quality report and attend monthly QAPI meeting.
- Document patient visits in a company EMR and patient file.
- Conduct quarterly and annual assessments on nutrition progress of LTC residents.
- Provide MNT to HIV/AIDS and cancer clients via home visits and phone assessments.
- Participate in QAPI, medical review board, and discharge rounds for abdominal transplant.
Registered dietitian skills and personality traits
We calculated that 33% of Registered Dietitians are proficient in Patients, Patient Care, and Home Health. They’re also known for soft skills such as Analytical skills, Compassion, and Listening skills.
We break down the percentage of Registered Dietitians that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Patients, 33%
Evaluated, assessed and reassessed patients based on their nutritional status identified by nursing, physicians, diagnosis or laboratory referral.
- Patient Care, 9%
Conducted individualized nutrition assessments, patient care planning and patient education regarding multiple nutrition related disease states.
- Home Health, 7%
Provide computerized documentation of nutrition interventions including completion of discharge summary, interventions and plans for home health patients.
- Medical Nutrition Therapy, 6%
Develop individualized Medical Nutrition Therapy.
- Culinary, 6%
Managed the in-store dietitian program providing nutrition education, culinary workshops, food demonstrations, and nutritional assessments.
- Rehabilitation, 5%
Oversee nutritional rehabilitation of clients in an Eating Disorder recovery program, as part of an interdisciplinary treatment team.
"patients," "patient care," and "home health" are among the most common skills that registered dietitians use at work. You can find even more registered dietitian responsibilities below, including:
Analytical skills. The most essential soft skill for a registered 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 registered dietitian resume shows how their duties depend on analytical skills: "participated in therapeutic menu planning and menu analysis. "
Compassion. Many registered dietitian duties rely on compassion. "dietitians and nutritionists must be caring and empathetic when helping clients address health and dietary issues and any related emotions.," so a registered dietitian will need this skill often in their role. This resume example is just one of many ways registered dietitian responsibilities rely on compassion: "awarded cares award 2014 compassion, accountability, respect, enthusiasm, service"
Listening skills. This is an important skill for registered dietitians to perform their duties. For an example of how registered dietitian responsibilities depend on this skill, consider that "dietitians and nutritionists must listen carefully to understand clients’ goals and concerns." This excerpt from a resume also shows how vital it is to everyday roles and responsibilities of a registered dietitian: "communicated with interdisciplinary healthcare team in order to provide optimal patient care. ".
Organizational skills. A big part of what registered dietitians do relies on "organizational skills." You can see how essential it is to registered 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 registered dietitian tasks: "led improving organizational performance team in redesign of patient menu system coordinated clinical nutrition department effort for successful jcaho reaccreditation"
Problem-solving skills. A commonly-found skill in registered dietitian job descriptions, "problem-solving skills" is essential to what registered dietitians do. Registered 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 registered dietitian duties rely on problem-solving skills in this resume example: "dedicated to solutions-oriented care and counseling committed to providing exceptional care and implementing effective treatments plans for patients. "
Speaking skills. While "speaking skills" is last on this skills list, don't underestimate its importance to registered dietitian responsibilities. Much of what a registered 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 registered dietitians: "counseled spanish speaking patients with heart disease, obesity, food allergies, gestational diabetes and diabetes type ii. "
The three companies that hire the most registered dietitians are:
- Healthcare Services Group745 registered dietitians jobs
- Sodexo Management, Inc.244 registered dietitians jobs
- Elior North America45 registered dietitians jobs
Choose from 10+ customizable registered dietitian resume templates
Build a professional registered dietitian resume in minutes. Our AI resume writing assistant will guide you through every step of the process, and you can choose from 10+ resume templates to create your registered dietitian resume.
Compare different registered dietitians
Registered dietitian vs. Clinical nutritionist
A nutritionist is a health professional who helps patients choose the right things to eat and advise them on the health effects of certain foods. By being experts in food and nutrition, nutritionists assess a patient's dietary habits and create plan menus for them. They usually work closely with patients who have medical issues such as diabetes or those undergoing chemotherapy. Nutritionists are also required to speak to students or employees about the importance of good nutrition and preventing health problems through proper foods.
There are some key differences in the responsibilities of each position. For example, registered dietitian responsibilities require skills like "home health," "culinary," "rehabilitation," and "excellent interpersonal." Meanwhile a typical clinical nutritionist has skills in areas such as "nutrition education," "diabetes," "rd," and "meal service." This difference in skills reveals the differences in what each career does.
On average, clinical nutritionists reach similar levels of education than registered dietitians. Clinical nutritionists are 4.1% more likely to earn a Master's Degree and 2.1% more likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Registered dietitian vs. Sports nutritionist
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 some skills are similar in these professions, other skills aren't so similar. For example, resumes show us that registered dietitian responsibilities requires skills like "patients," "patient care," "home health," and "medical nutrition therapy." But a sports nutritionist might use other skills in their typical duties, such as, "student athletes," "athletic performance," "sports performance," and "soccer."
In general, sports nutritionists achieve lower levels of education than registered dietitians. They're 5.4% less likely to obtain a Master's Degree while being 2.1% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Registered dietitian vs. Nutritionist
The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, registered dietitians are more likely to have skills like "patient care," "home health," "culinary," and "rehabilitation." But a nutritionist is more likely to have skills like "public health," "wic program," "rd," and "food service."
Nutritionists earn the highest salary when working in the finance industry, where they receive an average salary of $76,221. Comparatively, registered dietitians have the highest earning potential in the health care industry, with an average salary of $56,360.nutritionists typically earn lower educational levels compared to registered dietitians. Specifically, they're 8.0% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 0.7% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Registered dietitian vs. Nutrition specialist
Even though a few skill sets overlap between registered dietitians and nutrition specialists, there are some differences that are important to note. For one, a registered dietitian might have more use for skills like "home health," "culinary," "rehabilitation," and "excellent interpersonal." Meanwhile, some responsibilities of nutrition specialists require skills like "pet," "nutritional care," "nutrition education," and "diabetes. "
In general, nutrition specialists earn the most working in the health care industry, with an average salary of $58,810. The highest-paying industry for a registered dietitian is the health care industry.nutrition specialists reach lower levels of education compared to registered dietitians, in general. The difference is that they're 11.4% more likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 0.7% more likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Types of registered dietitian
Updated January 8, 2025
