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Human Nutrition vs. Dietetics as pre-PA major


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I am currently a Junior at the University of Kentucky in the Dietetics program. I am extremely interested in nutrition, but am unsure of the career path I would take. If I go the nutrition path I want to be directly involved in patient care and therapy, diagnostics, and outpatient nutrition therapy. I do not want to work in the food service area or prepare foods. This is what I keep running into when I search for jobs in dietetics. Most of the descriptions are strictly food service with very little patient contact or therapy. I am kind of viewing the nutritional therapy career as a back up for if I decide not to go to PA school, which at the moment seems to be a remote but not unreasonable possibility. I am pretty much set on going to PA school, and both the Human Nutrition and Dietetics undergrad programs encompass most of the pre-reqs for PA school, minus 1 or 2. I will be going an extra semester in undergrad because of some switching of majors freshman and sophomore year, but either one I choose now can be completed in the same time. So my questions are: Which would be the better choice? Does anyone know about the careers in dietetics and human nutrition? Which seems to be the better fit for my career aspirations other than PA school? Are these suitable pre PA majors? Opinions from anyone with similar undergrad majors or anyone that has transitioned from a career in dietetics/nutrition to PA would be of great help. Sorry for the long post. I just need to get this all straightened out. Thanks!

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I am confused. PA and nutrition are completely different fields. You state you are very interested in nutriton, but feel you are set on becoming a PA?

 

If you want to do nutrition, do that. Its rewarding in its own right, and you get to tailor diet plans for people with many metabolic disorders and teach them the plan. If you want to be involved in general medicine, then be a PA. Good luck in whatever you do!

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  • 2 years later...

I realize I'm a few years late on this thread, BUT, I am almost in the exact same spot you were when you started this tread Keousl2. I just graduated with my BS in nutrition, emphasis on dietetics. I have been vacillating over and over again whether to:

 

(a) do an RD internship, work as an RD for a year or 2, then apply to PA school, OR

(b) aim straight for my end goal, PA

 

As of now I am going with choice (b), because after speaking with a director of the USC PA program, I was told RD hours aren't really viewed as direct HCE, and thus would be a waste of time if I were only seeking my RD as a bridge to PA. However, I am now left scrambling with a way to get direct HCE (looking at taking an EMT-b course...)

 

I was just curious what you decided on, and how things worked out for you since your situation seems so similar to mine.

 

Also, bradtPA, regarding what you said about "PA and nutrition are completely different fields", and how if Keousl2 is "very interested in nutrition", you don't feel he/she can also feel "set on becoming a PA".... I would like to take a stab at speaking for Keousl2 here, as well as myself. Although there exist numerous and vast differences between nutrition and PA, the fact remains that nutrition plays a key role in so many disease states. In addition, RDs have an extremely limited scope of practice, something that, at least for me, would get old fast. Am I extremely interested in nutrition? You betcha! Do I love medicine, pathophysiology and the works for the PA field? Absolutely! My plan is to marry the two into a single practice, especially being interested in the bariatric specialty!

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I am actually a Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise major at VT with concentrations in Dietetics and Sports Nutrition. Coming into undergrad I was debating between the Dietetics concentation in my major to get my RD or complete the "Science of Food" concentration which is the path that most pre-professional students (MD, DO, PT, OT) go into in my major because of the rigorous science classes required of it. I eventually landed on Dietetics and wanted to go into Sports Nutrition, but about a year ago I realized it wasn't for me. Thankfully, my HNFE major and Dietetics concentration required about 95% of the pre-reqs for many PA programs (not including Medical Terminology which is actually not even offered at VT) so I don't have to stay longer to get those classes done. I know we go to different schools, but many of my Dietetics classes actually parallel a lot of medical content. Two of the best classes I took were year-long courses split up into two semesters each- "Metabolic Nutrition I and II" and "Medical Nutrition Therapy". Although they had an emphasis on nutrition, we still learned how food, disease, metabolism interact together which has given me a unique education about the human body. As a matter of fact, last week I was shadowing with one of several PAs I shadow with weekly and we saw this pt that was fatigued, wasn't eating, was losing weight and had a tender abdomen. She had been in the hospital a month prior and was given antibiotics for esophagitis. At that point I turned to the PA and told her that I believed the pt had c.diff, and it ended up that she did. And the reason why I was able to diagnosis this pt was because we had talked about it in my nutrition class. As different as Dietetics and Medicine look on paper, there are still overlapping measures between the two and that makes people like you and me with a BS in Dietetics have some unique knowledge that someone in a different major might not have. As far as careers in Nutrition and Dietetics, I know a majority of the students that graduate from Dietetics at VT go into clinical work. My program has done a great job emphasizing the different Dietetic careers out there, which does include foodservice and sports performance areas, but most people do go into clinical work which would mean you would be working in hospitals or other types of mdical facilities and directly working with pts. However, many of my professors are RD's too and they have told me once I disclosed to them that I was instead applying to PA school and bypassing the DI that working with a pt as a dietitian is different from a PA working with a pt. even if they may be both working together in a health team with the goal of helping a pt because they have very different training. If you're having a hard time deciding what kind of pt contact that you want, I would shadow both a PA and an RD working in a hospital (clinical work)- I did both and it made me realize how much I would rather be a PA helping people than an RD.

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  • 1 month later...
I love this description, I graduate in May in dietetics and am currently debating on whether or not to pursue an internship or apply to PA school next year.

 

I understand exactly how you feel. I stayed in school a fifth year because I couldn't decide between PA and the DI. I think it was the fall before graduation (I was supposed to graduate May 2012) that I decided I needed more time and decided to stay another year, spread out my classes to finish my degree, and take PA pre-reqs. In hindsight this was the best decision I ever made, because if I had graduated on time I probably would have applied to a DI just because I was a Dietetics student and realized six months in that it wasn't for me. This year also gave me time to work in a hospital, shadow PAs, and assert my decision to go PA. So overall the best advice I can give to you is don't go into something unless you're 100% all in. Others can argue with that statement, but regardless of your decision, both take an extreme amount of time, effort, and money to apply to and complete. If you still feel conflicted when you graduate there is nothing wrong with taking a year or two off to work, shadow, and make up your mind. I know that may sound frustrating- it was for me being type A and wanting to graduate on time knowing exactly what I was going to do with my life- but I can guarantee it will be worth taking time to make the best decision for you!

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