DIETETIC
FIELD
EXPERIENCE
Tiffany Hahn
INTRODUCTION:
BARRON COUNTY AGING AND DISABILITY
RESOURCE CENTER, BARRON, WI
May to August 2010
 272 Hours completed at site
 Volunteer Work
 Provides a community resource for older adults
and adults with disabilities that offers
information and connections, counseling, family
care benefits, and access to nutrition programs
and healthy meals at senior centers as well as
meals on wheels
 Worked under Leslie Fijalkiewicz, the dietitian
and nutrition program manager

INTRODUCTION:
DUNN COUNTY WIC CLINIC, MENOMONIE, WI
February to August 2010
 109.5 Hours completed
 Volunteer Work
 WIC is a federal grant program that serves lowincome pregnant women, breastfeeding and non
breastfeeding mothers, infants, and children up
to age five that are at a nutritional risk. These
individuals receive food packages, counseling,
and other various items.
 Worked under registered dietitian, Ellen Blumer

ROLE AT THE SITES AND HOW FIELD
EXPERIENCE WAS OBTAINED
Field Experience was obtained by researching the internet
for dietitians in the area and by contacting the dietitians
by telephone to set up an interview to meet in person.
 My role at the Aging and Disability Resource Center was a
volunteer/intern. I would work alongside the dietitian to
complete any necessary tasks. I mainly dealt with the
meals on wheels program, meals at the senior centers, and
commodity food program through the USDA.
 My role at the WIC Clinic was labeled as a WIC Clerk. I
worked alongside the registered dietitian in providing
nutrition information and counseling, scheduling
appointments, informing potential clients about benefits of
WIC, printing WIC checks, and working at the Menomonie
Farmer’s Market.

REQUIRED PROJECT
SELF-REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

Self-reflective journal allowed me to take the observations and
hands on experience from the sites and reflect upon what I had
learned in my classes.

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I reflected upon courses or manner of patient education for the
WIC Program.
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The journal related to almost all of my nutrition and food
service courses taken and was very beneficial in increasing
further understanding.
I reflected upon procedures for tray assembly and service,
control systems, food service and sanitation, selection of
employees, and recruitment of employees for the Aging and
Disability Resource Center.
Reasoning for more reflection on Aging and Disability Resource
Center is because they have food service, which WIC does not,
and they are more involved in human resources than WIC.
REQUIRED PROJECT
BUDGET PROCESS
I sat down with the program dietitian at the Aging and Disability
Resource Center and looked over the budget from the previous year
to calculate the budget for the 2011 budget. I also got to sit down
with the financial advisor. The program dietitian and financial
advisor work together during the budgeting process at the Aging and
Disability Resource Center. Budgeting helped me to utilize cost
control tactics learned from Quantity Food Production, and helped
me to better understand my current course Foodservice, Finance, and
Cost Control.
PROJECT # 1

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Objective: Create nutrition education materials for the
program Beneficial Bites, as well as, giving oral
presentations for the program.
Every month a new food is chosen to be incorporated into
the menu at the Aging and Disability Resource Center to
expose participants to a variety of healthy foods. I created
presentations, handouts, posters, games, and many other
activities each month based on the chosen food. I also gave
the presentations at the meal sites to enhance learning.
This objective related to nutrition education and
community nutrition in administering a nutrition program.

PROJECT # 2
Objective: Create health promotion and informational
bulletin boards and health promotion hand outs to create
awareness for WIC and public health participants
 This relates to Community Nutrition and Nutrition
Education courses in developing health promotional items
focused on the target audience to enhance wellness.

PROJECT # 3

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Objective: Participate in health promotion activity at Menomonie
Farmer’s Market and evaluate needs of community, while giving
out nutrition information
Each week a food was chosen at the farmer’s market to be used in
a recipe. I would develop a healthy cooking demonstration and
give out free samples, recipes, and nutritional facts about the
food.

It helped out a lot to have had Quantity Food Production and
Multicultural Foods to help me to be comfortable with cooking
and multiplying out yields for recipes,
Multicultural foods also helped me to have a baseline for
understanding the Hmong population that is increasing in
Menomonie and to further develop my cultural competency.

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Community Nutrition also helped me to prepare the necessary
materials to communicate the nutrition message of the chosen
fruit/vegetable/herb.
PROJECT # 4
Objective: Interview residents to determine satisfaction
face to face and through a survey format to compare which
yields best results
 A set of questions were developed to gain feedback on the
participants of the nutrition program at the Aging and
Disability Resource Center to help improve the program.
 Interviewing and surveys were gone over in Principles of
Management and Food Service Administration courses to
make sure individual’s needs were being met to sustain the
program

PROJECT # 5
Objective: Compile descriptions of therapeutic diets
provided by all contracted vendors. Work with program
dietitian to create standard definitions for Barron County
Elderly Nutrition Program to facilitate better
communication of participant needs when contracting these
special diets
 Basic nutrition helped to understand the basic concepts of
the diets, but other than my nutrition course, I had not had
a lot of experience with therapeutic diets. This project is
helping me to connect what I learned over the summer in
my Medical Nutrition Therapy class currently.

PROJECT # 6
Objective: Rotate through all foodservice positions
providing relief as appropriate. Write a job description of
all positions
 I rotated through the cook, kitchen aide, dishwasher, site
manager, and meal delivery driver positions at the Aging
and Disability Resource Center. I then wrote a job
description based off of what I did on the job and based off
of interviewing the employees about their jobs.
 In Quantity Food Production we wrote job descriptions for
each food service position that we used in creating our
meal, so I was able to use a similar template for this
objective and further expand my knowledge base.

PROJECT # 7
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Objective: Plan and implement food safety and sanitation training for
nutrition program staff
I created a jeopardy game for training the nutrition program staff and
went to the various kitchens and meal sites to implement my traning
program.
I took Food Service and Sanitation and Quantity Food Production which
helped me in creating the topics for the game based on the current food
safety and sanitation guidelines.
It was also beneficial that I rotated through the food service positions in
project six because I was able to see what safety and sanitations areas
needed to be focused on
PROJECT # 8
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Objective: Write a state or federal legislator about a
nutrition issue
I researched the bill H.R. 5504, Improving Nutrition for
Children Act, and found that as an aspiring nutrition
professional, I strongly supported it. I then wrote to my
Congressman Dave Obey. This bill is a reauthorization of
child nutrition programs such as school lunch and school
breakfast
CONCLUSION AND WORDS OF ADVICE
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Obtaining my field experience was also a great way to make connections
with dietitians in the field and a way to have references when applying for
internships and jobs.
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In the future, I will be able to show the experience I have in the field of
dietetics when applying for jobs and internships. It will be a great way to
show the effort I have put into my desired profession.
Don’t sit back and wait to find your experience until the last minute. I
took a whole summer off of work after my junior year to be able to
complete the required hours. If that isn’t possible for you, try to spread
out your field experience over two summers so that you can work some of
the time as well.
If you get turned down by some sites, don’t let that stop you from trying
other places. I tried to get into a lot of places before I got my two sites, and
they were great experiences.

If you haven’t taken that many nutrition classes yet, don’t let that stop
you from getting the experience. I took a lot of knowledge from my field
experience, and I am currently applying it in my senior level classes.