VDD presents curriculum for education

06/13/2013

Now, for the first time, there is a nationwide standardized curriculum for the training of dieticians, which has taken into account important current developments and makes recommendations for a revision of the vocational and examination regulations. Almost twenty years after the adoption of the professional laws for dieticians this is overdue.

Under the title „Training dietitians with competence-oriented training“ lays the Association of Dieticians - Deutscher Bundesverband e. V. (VDD) for the first time a nationwide recommended curriculum for the training of dieticians. It was created by the VDD Working Group Law. Their members have been working for many years as school leaders and teachers at dietetic assistant schools. With the new curriculum, the VDD has created the basic prerequisites for re-evaluating the profession and making a long overdue amendment to the Professional Code and the 1994 Education and Examination Regulations. With regard to the introduction of the German Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning (DQR), there is now a current source that can be used to classify dieticians.

Dietitians are a self-reliant and self-responsible therapeutic profession. The competences described in the curriculum make it clear which services Dietitians provide. It can be shown where health professionals in the field of nutrition share important common competencies, but where, in contrast, the special competences of dieticians come into play, namely the bundling of a highly specialized knowledge paired with practical skills. In this way - in the cooperation of all health professions - the fields of activity of the individual professions can be better coordinated and the profession of dietitian can be optimally used in the structure of the health professions.
A competently conducted diet therapy and nutritional advice ultimately serves every person or patient. In this context, the VDD confirms its demand that this job profile be identified by a job title, which takes into account the self-responsibility and independence in the provision of services.

The curriculum takes into account the extensive changes in the occupational field in recent years, both nationally and internationally. There are thus points of departure for the academic education of dieticians, which is a big step on the way to a comparable European education at a high level and enables a comprehensive cooperation.
The curriculum was published in May as a book (ISBN 978-3-89967-862-8) and is available for a price of 20 euros from the VDD office ([email protected]) (order form also via www.vdd.de). (Pm)