NOSM’s Dietetic Internship Program Receives National Accreditation

The Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) is pleased to announce the School’s Northern Ontario Dietetic Internship Program (NODIP) has received full accreditation status from the Dietitians of Canada (DC) until 2022. Thanks to its reputation for high quality of education, NODIP was recently selected by the Dietitians of Canada to be the first post-degree internship of all Canadian dietetic education programs to be assessed using the new Partnership for Dietetic Education and Practice (PDEP) Accreditation Standards.

A three-person surveyor team from Dietitians of Canada visited NOSM on May 3-4, 2015. Dietitians of Canada is the national accrediting organization for programs in dietetic education. For NOSM to receive accreditation from DC, the School’s education and training programs must meet nationally established standards. At the conclusion of the site visit, the DC accreditation team applauded both NODIP and its Manager, Denise Raftis’ leadership. The accreditation team reported that NODIP students and preceptors felt engaged, supported, and grateful to be involved in the program.

“Receiving official accreditation from the Dietitians of Canada is recognition that the Northern Ontario Dietetic Internship Program is successfully preparing students for practice. Our students are receiving a high quality education that results in the graduates of our program providing high quality dietetic service to their patients and clients,” said Dr. David Marsh, NOSM Deputy Dean. “The accreditation team was impressed with the morale in all areas of the program. The success of NODIP is a testament to the excellence of NODIP’s staff, preceptors, and dietetic interns.”

NODIP provides students with an opportunity to participate in distributed and community-based experiences. This allows dietetic interns to acquire the range of comprehensive skills preparing them for dietetic practice. With placements across Northern Ontario in locations such as regional and small rural hospitals, public health units, family health teams, and Francophone and Aboriginal communities, students are given insights into the geographic, demographic, and cultural realities of practising in the region.

Since the program accepted its first students in 2007, NODIP has trained 99 dietetic interns in more than 35 communities in the North. Of those, 74 percent have chosen to practice in rural or Northern communities. That means that 64 dietitians are now increasing access to dietetic services in rural and Northern settings that have faced historical shortages.

For more information, please visit: www.nosm.ca/nodip.