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Career Library

Therapy & Rehab

Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN)

The licensed clinical expert on nutrition — managing medical nutrition therapy for patients with diabetes, kidney disease, cancer, and more.

Years after high school

6

Degree

Master's degree (now required)

Entrance exam

None standard; the supervised-practice match is the competitive step

Median pay

$76,400 national median for dietitians and nutritionists (BLS, May 2025).

What the job is actually like

In a hospital: reviewing charts, calculating nutrition needs for critically ill patients, and adjusting tube-feeding orders. In outpatient: long counseling visits helping people actually change what they eat. Far more clinical than the public image of the job suggests.

The path

  1. 014 years undergraduate in an accredited nutrition and dietetics program
  2. 02Master's degree — required for new candidates as of 2024
  3. 03Supervised practice internship, typically 1,000+ hours
  4. 04CDR registration exam

Good fit if

  • You want to work on chronic disease and prevention through daily habits
  • You are patient with slow, incremental progress
  • You like counseling as much as science

Think twice if

  • You want procedures or acute, fast-paced work
  • Pay relative to a required master's is a concern — run those numbers honestly

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All salary figures here are median annual wages from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025 — the most recent full national dataset. 'Median' means half of workers earn more and half earn less. Three things to keep in mind: (1) pay varies enormously by state, city, setting, and experience — a nurse in California and a nurse in rural Alabama earn very different salaries; (2) training lengths are typical, not guaranteed, and programs differ; (3) these numbers change every year. Always verify current figures at bls.gov/ooh before making a decision. For context, the BLS median wage for all U.S. occupations was $50,980, while healthcare practitioner and technical occupations had a median of $86,530 — one of the reasons health care is such a stable field.