Academic Plan of Study
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Career Goals
1. Graduate from the University of Kentucky with a B.S. in Dietetics. Upon completion, this degree will allow progression into my preferred career plans. It will also allow, in combination with an ACEND accredited Dietetic Internship, to sit for the National Registration Examination for Dietitians.
2. Graduate from the University of Kentucky Physician Assistant Program. The Physician Assistant (PA) functions under the supervision and responsibility of a licensed physician and is competent to:
- elicit a comprehensive health history
- perform physical examinations
- interpret and evaluate diagnostic data
- establish basic treatment plans
- counsel and educate patients
- respond to commonly encountered emergency care situations.
3. Obtain a Master's Degree in Public Health, with a Health Behavior Concentration. This degree focuses on the following competencies:
- Utilize a basic planning framework (Precede Proceed) and demonstrate proficiency in applying this to theories, concepts and models used for intervention at the individual-level, the community-level, and the societal-level.
- Utilize qualitative and quantitative methods to identify disparate health outcomes and develop culturally relevant strategies for preventing and/or eliminating them.
- Demonstrate proficiency in knowledge and critical reasoning needed for health promotion research and practice, and describe the “nested nature” of public health behavior problems and programs.
- Assess the effectiveness of an existing program through the application of evidence-based approaches as they pertain to the development and evaluation of social and behavioral science interventions.
4. Develop a patient base in the fields of pediatric & adult endocrinology, with a focus on diabetes. With an ever-increasing volume of people being diagnosed with diabetes every year, it is important to have a solid background in order to better understand and relate to your patients. The most recent data from 2012 indicate that 29.1 million Americans, or 9.3% of the population, had diabetes; in 2010 the figures were 25.8 million and 8.3%. Of the 29.1 million, 21.0 million were diagnosed, and 8.1 million were undiagnosed; in 2010 the figures were 18.8 million and 7.0 million. The incidence of diabetes in 2012 was 1.7 million new diagnoses/year; in 2010 it was 1.9 million.