Field Placement: Greater Los Angeles Veterans' Administration Hospital (VA)
Location: West Los Angeles, CA
Preceptor: Colleen Ross
Student Name: Kelly Charboneau
Year: 2004

Six of the first year CHS students completed the first part of the dietetics internship to become a registered dietitian at the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Administration Hospital (VA). I completed the community rotation, which satisfies the requirements for the Field Studies Experience. The internship is directed by Colleen Ross who coordinates the VA’s program with the MPH program at UCLA. I worked with Lisa Murguia, RD for the first five weeks in an outpatient clinic at the main West Los Angeles VA hospital. Through observation, discussion and practice, I learned how to counsel patients on a variety of conditions such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension, irritable bowel syndrome and underweight to name a few. I learned the medical note writing system used by the VA and all other facets of the job of an outpatient dietitian at the VA hospital. After 5 weeks working with Lisa on improving my counseling and note writing skills, I took over her position for a week, seeing all of her patients and documenting the visits on my own. Then I completed several one to two week experiences intended to allow me to continue to foster the skills I learned about outpatient counseling and documentation in a variety of settings. At the VA hospital I then worked with dietitians involved in diabetes clinic, women’s clinic, home based primary care, cardiac clinic and administration. Outside of the VA I spent two weeks observing and doing projects at WIC and spent a week at Children’s Hospital doing community and clinical projects and observation. In addition to these experiences, every Monday all of the interns met for a class taught on a variety of topics related to medical nutrition therapy, administration and community nutrition. The day was spent gaining skills and confidence as a dietitian and the work experience was supplemented by projects, readings and discussion questions. The six interns then return for the completion of our rotations from January to June. This internship qualifies and prepares us to sit for the exam to become licensed as a registered dietitian.

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