Sheffield Hallam University: Dietetics (pre-registration)

Summary

• Become eligible for registration with the Health and Care Professions Council — which is compulsory for practicing dieticians in the UK.

• Gain advanced qualifications in dietetics.

• Learn through practice placements and academic study.

On this course, you’ll gain a unique understanding of nutrition, metabolism, food composition and diet — and how food can be used to promote health and treat serious conditions. You’ll apply your learning on useful practice placements, and reflect on your work in taught sessions. You’ll graduate as a skilled, autonomous practitioner, ready for employment in a range of health, social care, voluntary and independent sector settings.

Throughout the course, your taught modules will be reinforced by group discussion and directed study. Simulated and practical experiential learning activities will enable you to apply theory to practice.

You’ll develop a critical approach to the evidence that underpins dietetics — gaining a deeper understanding of the issues at the forefront of current practice. This will prepare you for conducting your own research in the field.

You learn through

• four practice placements in a variety of health and social care settings

• academic study and coursework

• a substantial final year project/dissertation focusing on researching practice

Applied learning Work placements

Academic and practical learning is a main feature on this course. You are placed in two different dietetic placements in your first year.

An initial placement of 10 days will familiarise you with the practice setting. Your second placement of 50 days involves the development of your practice skills in selected settings. Both placements are part-time and take place Tuesday to Thursday in an NHS practice setting. Your performance is assessed to meet professional competencies.

In the second year you go on another part-time placement, where you continue to develop and extend your practice skills in a service where there may be no direct dietetic involvement but where there is potential for dietetics. This may be in the voluntary, independent or private sector.

Your academic study takes place alongside practice learning scheduled Monday-Wednesday. The course ends with a final 60-day placement — where professional skills are consolidated in more challenging and complex settings. This gives a solid foundation for your professional career.

Live projects

Your dissertation is based on your own choice of primary research, service evaluation and/or audit of an area of practice which you will plan and carry out in your second year. This is supported through local partnerships to advance research and enquiry.

Networking opportunities

The course gives many opportunities to get to know practising clinicians, students and practitioners from many other professions as well as dietetics. Learning alongside colleagues from physiotherapy, radiography, occupational therapy, nursing and social work is integral to the course.

An integrated curriculum in bespoke modules together with the involvement of service users and specialist practitioners offers multidimensional perspectives on learning and prepares you for working as part of an integrated workforce in health and social care and wider environments.

MSc