Inpatient Clinical Dietitian

Clinical Dietitian | Full Time | 0.9 FTE Northwestern Medicine McHenry Hospital

We’re hiring a Registered Dietitian to join our Clinical Nutrition team at Northwestern Medicine McHenry Hospital in a 0.9 FTE full-time role supporting our 6th floor cardiovascular unit.

This is an excellent opportunity for a dietitian who enjoys acute-care practice, complex inpatient care, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the ability to practice at the top of their scope.

• 0.9 FTE full-time position
• Primary coverage for the 6th floor cardiovascular unit
• Weekend rotation approximately every 5 weeks
• Unit-based, on-site acute-care role

In this role, you will provide unit-based nutrition care for adult cardiovascular patients, including patients with complex medical needs, malnutrition risk, nutrition-support needs, and discharge education needs.

You’ll work closely with physicians, nurses, pharmacists, care coordination, and other members of the interdisciplinary team to support timely, high-quality nutrition care.

• Manage an adult inpatient assignment on the 6th floor cardiovascular unit
• Complete nutrition assessments, follow-ups, and patient education
• Identify and provide interventions for patients with malnutrition and other high-risk nutrition needs
• Assess and manage patients requiring enteral and parenteral nutrition
• Participate in interprofessional rounds and unit-based care coordination
• Collaborate closely with dietitians, physicians, pharmacists, nursing, and other healthcare team members

Our Clinical Dietitians have protocol-based order-writing privileges that support autonomous clinical practice, including:

• Diet orders
• Oral nutrition supplements
• Enteral nutrition orders
• Protocol-driven monitoring of enteral and parenteral nutrition
• Collaborative parenteral nutrition order management with pharmacists as part of the Nutrition Support team

McHenry Hospital offers exposure to a diverse adult acute-care population, including cardiovascular care, critical care, medical/telemetry, renal disease, oncology, malnutrition, and complex nutrition-support patients.

Our Clinical Dietitians are integrated directly into the patient-care units they support, with dedicated RD workstations located on the inpatient floors. This unit-based model supports strong interdisciplinary relationships, real-time collaboration, and meaningful visibility of nutrition care at the bedside.

• Registered Dietitian credential
• Illinois licensure
• Strong clinical judgment and communication skills
• Ability to independently organize and manage an acute-care patient assignment

• Approximately 2+ years of clinical dietitian experience
• Acute-care inpatient experience
• Experience with enteral nutrition
• Experience with parenteral nutrition
• Comfort working with medically complex adult patients
• Interest in cardiovascular care and unit-based clinical practice

You’ll be part of a Clinical Nutrition team that values continued professional development, clinical excellence, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Opportunities may include:

• On-site continuing education
• Mentorship and collaboration with experienced and Advanced Dietitians
• Quality-improvement initiatives
• Malnutrition and high-risk patient-care initiatives