Career opportunities in Human Nutrition and Dietetics at Science Career Week

"We join forces so that you can get as close as possible to the professional world". With these words María Zarranz, career manager of the School of Pharmacy and Nutrition, welcomed the participants to the first session of the Science Career Week, organized together with the School of Sciences. "Every year we bet on a week of employment so that you can discover the range of employment opportunities of each Degree and get to know, from the hand of alumni, some companies in the sector".

The first roundtable was attended by Sol Hershey, Claudia Urdangarín and María Jáuregui, three Human Nutrition and Dietetics alumni who are developing their professional careers in different fields. All three agreed on the importance of internships in defining a professional profile . "If you know you're in a stage that has an end, don't wait until the end to see what you do next; it's vital to go ahead," said Hershey. And Jauregui added, "Many times we think that the work of our dreams is going to come to us, but the reality is that we can also be the ones to bring it about." 

Improving the health of the population through nutrition

"I always knew I wanted to dedicate myself to the research, so, after finishing the Degree, I took the Master's Degree European in Food, Nutrition and Metabolism (E-MENU) as a previous step to start the doctorate", explained Sol, about to deposit the thesis she has made during the last years in the department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health.

"I am American, so in the summer I always went back to the U.S. and took the opportunity to do rotations in different departments. In my third year I realized that I was more interested in the health of the population and how to improve it through nutrition, so I chose an internship with the dietician at project Predimed Plus". There she got to know the department and all the research that it carries out. "I liked it so much that I did my dissertation with them," she confessed. This year she will defend the thesis and prepare for a postdoc in Boston, where she also did a stay while studying the Degree. 

Nutrition of the hospitalized patient

A different case is that of Claudia Urdangarin, who has been working as a dietician-nutritionist for 14 years at the Clínica Universidad de Navarra. "We dedicate ourselves to preparing personalized diets for all the patients, because it is common for almost all of them to have many exclusions," she explained. "We also supervise the breakfast and lunch plating shifts, and we train the kitchen staff ."

With a postgraduate program in pediatric nutrition, she has specialized in feeding the elderly and those with Alzheimer's disease. "We are continually studying new publications and at partnership daily with the Departments physicians. This way we can offer a better service to patients. Now, for example, we are going to change diabetes diets hand in hand with Endocrinology, last year we changed liver diets...".

In the same way, he explained to the students an essential aspect of his work is to be at contact directly with the patients: "Those with malnutrition we always go to see them, also those in pediatric oncology... We visit those who have a hard time eating due to treatments and surgeries, and in the residential center and services such as hemodialysis, which have more continuity, every week we do the general evaluation of one person.

The experience at enquiry nutritional

For her part, María Jáuregui is a dietician-nutritionist at Esportium, where she combines general care at enquiry with sports nutrition. "During degree program I didn't know what I wanted to do in the future, although it was clear to me that the subjects I liked the most were those that taught you how the body worked," she confessed to the students. So, after an internship at enquiry, she decided that her place was at enquiry nutrition with patients and focused on athletes. "When I finished, I asked my tutor for advice on what to do then and it coincided that a nutritionist had just left his center, so he offered me to stay."