Megan Fairweather

Megan Fairweather's supervised practicum rotated her through a hospital's oncology, cardiac, and pediatric units in one semester — a pace she says was brutal and exactly right. "You cannot learn clinical nutrition from a textbook case study where the patient conveniently has one problem. My third week I had a diabetic patient recovering from cardiac surgery who was also refusing solid food, and my preceptor just said 'figure it out, then tell me your reasoning.' That happened weekly, not as a special case."

She earned her RD credential the year after graduating and now manages clinical nutrition services for a 200-bed regional hospital, supervising four dietitians and precepting Porter students through the same rotations that trained her. "I specifically ask for Porter students during precepting season. They've already been thrown into ambiguous cases instead of clean ones, so the adjustment to real patients is smaller."