Registered Dietitian, Jenna Deinzer completed both her B.S. in Nutritional Sciences as well as her dietetic internship at Rutgers University. While she always knew she wanted to work in healthcare, when Jenna learned about the role of a registered dietitian within the healthcare team she immediately knew what she wanted to do!
Throughout her undergraduate years and internship, she enjoyed learning about the many career options open to dietitians and participated in many valuable experiences that eventually led her to where she is today.
Jenna is the lead dietitian at the Penn Medicine Princeton Center for Eating Disorders (PCED)—an inpatient facility for individuals who have received a primary diagnosis of an eating disorder. In this role, she works as part of an interdisciplinary treatment team to oversee nutritional care and provide individual counseling sessions to both pediatric and adult in-patients. Jenna facilitates nutrition education groups as well as provides nutrition education and counseling for patients’ families. As a member of the clinical leadership team, she is involved in program development, staff scheduling, performance improvement initiatives, and research projects. Jenna also oversees the nutritional services provided by the PCED and provides clinical support and guidance to the dietitians.
Jenna spends evenings and some Saturdays working with eating disorder patients in an outpatient setting at Eating Matters in Lawrenceville, NJ. In both settings, Jenna strives to help individuals create a positive relationship with food by finding peace and balance.
Jenna attributes many of the valuable lessons she has learned and her current success to three mentors she has been fortunate enough to have throughout her dietetics journey; college professor Peggy Policastro, PhD, RDN, dietetic internship director Gerri McKay, M.Ed, RD, and owner of Eating Matters Jill Shaffer, RD, CEDRD-S.
The biggest challenge Jenna faced was during her dietetic internship. When she started her internship she was unsure where to start her career since there were so many wonderful opportunities in the field. Jenna reflects this “was both exciting and overwhelming.” Through approaching each rotation with an open mind, Jenna was able to determine which areas she connected with most. Jenna states,
“I am so thankful for where I landed my first job after completing the dietetic internship and still remain at the same facility 5+ years later, just now, in a slightly different role as Lead Dietitian. It is a fulfilling balance being able to work with and learn so much from all members of the multidisciplinary treatment team in addition to the work I do individually to counsel patients and families.”
One piece of advice Jenna would give students is to “be open to and explore all areas of nutrition and dietetics. There are so many exciting areas dietitians are currently working in. You never know what area/specialty may be a good fit.”
In her free time, Jenna enjoys spending time at the Jersey Shore with her family.
