Medical nutrition is an interdisciplinary field that combines medicine and nutrition and is an important component of modern clinical medicine. It aims to improve patients’ nutritional status, enhance immune function, promote disease recovery, and reduce the incidence of complications and mortality through reasonable nutritional interventions [4] . The knowledge covered includes basic medical knowledge, specialized nutrition knowledge, and clinical medical knowledge, with the aim of cultivating professionals with a solid foundation in medical and nutritional theory who are capable of engaging in nutrition-related work.

Medical nutrition internships can help students transition from theory to practice, systematically learn and master the latest theories, methods, and techniques in medical nutrition, and improve their professional skills. Through nutritional assessments, nutritional education, speech competitions, and other methods, students’ language expression skills, communication skills, and accumulation of clinical practice experience are promoted. Standardized internship training helps cultivate more outstanding professionals, injects new vitality into the development of the discipline, meets the growing demand for medical nutrition, and promotes the continuous advancement of the discipline [5] . Medical nutrition professionals trained through high-quality internship programs are better equipped to provide specialized nutritional support and treatment to patients, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of nutritional therapy, improving patients’ nutritional status, promoting their recovery, and ultimately elevating the overall quality of healthcare services.

Medical nutrition internships serve as an important bridge between campus nutrition education and clinical nutrition practice, playing a pivotal role in bridging the two [6] . The traditional “lecture-demonstration-imitation” teaching model, while historically significant, is teacher-centered and emphasizes one-way knowledge transfer. This approach struggles to meet the demands of cultivating versatile medical professionals in the modern era. The mentor is the absolute authority and sole source of knowledge. The initiation, direction, and evaluation of teaching activities are entirely controlled by teachers, while students remain in a passive, receptive role. A uniform curriculum, teaching methods, and assessment standards are applied to all students, disregarding individual differences, prior knowledge backgrounds, and learning styles. Teaching is viewed as a “filling” process, wherein teachers impart knowledge and skills to students. Emphasizing imitation and repetition rather than critical thinking and innovation. This model often prioritizes standardized technical skills while neglecting the cultivation of students’ critical thinking, innovative abilities, and humanistic literacy. Moreover, it fails to integrate cutting-edge technologies such as smart healthcare, resulting in a disconnect between education and clinical practice development. For example, Luoyang Vocational and Technical College began enrolling students in its Medical Nutrition program in 2013. Starting in 2016, the college initiated a medical school collaboration, enabling students to undertake internships in hospital clinical nutrition departments. At present, clinical nutrition internships primarily focus on the distribution of enteral nutrition formulas and observational learning in other clinical departments. This approach lacks a systematic, standardized, and comprehensive understanding of clinical nutrition practice, resulting in graduates being unable to promptly and effectively assume responsibilities in clinical nutrition departments. Therefore, cultivating job competency in medical nutrition students requires not only a focus on knowledge acquisition but also an emphasis on whether they possess the practical skills needed for professional practice.

Within the new medical paradigm, clinical nutrition internship supervision is facing unprecedented challenges and opportunities. The traditional “lecture-demonstration-imitation” teaching model, while historically significant, is teacher-centered and emphasizes one-way knowledge transfer. This approach struggles to meet the demands of cultivating versatile medical professionals in the modern era. This model often prioritizes standardized technical skills while neglecting the cultivation of students’ critical thinking, innovative abilities, and humanistic literacy. Moreover, it fails to integrate cutting-edge technologies such as smart healthcare, resulting in a disconnect between education and clinical practice development. Therefore, establishing a new training pathway centered on job competency and driving the transformation of mentoring models from “knowledge transfer” to “capability development” has become an inevitable choice for enhancing the quality of clinical nutrition talent cultivation.

In order to strengthen interns’ theoretical knowledge, accumulate practical experience, and enhance their comprehensive abilities during their internship, a group assignment and rotation plan has been developed, as shown in Table 1 . Each rotation cycle lasts two months. After completing a rotation cycle, each group hands over to the next group and rotates to the next group.

Regular business training can enhance the professional competence of interns and the entire nutrition team, keep pace with industry trends, and comprehensively support the growth of students and the team. The professional training sessions conducted by the Nutrition Department of the 989th Hospital of the Logistics Support Force are a time-honored tradition that has been passed down over the years. These sessions are held every Tuesday afternoon and cover a wide range of topics in a comprehensive manner, employing innovative and diverse learning formats.

Regularly organize learning sessions on the basics of nutrition, providing a detailed analysis of the metabolic processes of macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats, proteins) and micronutrients (vitamins, minerals) in the human body, including how nutrients from different food sources are digested, absorbed, transported, and utilized, to deepen understanding of the fundamental relationship between nutrition and health. Stay up to date with the latest research findings in the field of nutrition, learn about the latest nutrition-related guidelines, and gain insights into the most cutting-edge nutritional recommendations by analyzing guidelines published by authoritative medical institutions both domestically and internationally. This will enable you to promptly update your clinical practice methods. Learn to use artificial intelligence to estimate food energy, analyze its nutritional content, compare it to the standards of dietary nutrient reference intakes, and provide dietary recommendations.

Regularly invite specialists from gastroenterology, neurosurgery, endocrinology, and oncology to discuss the pathogenesis, diagnostic methods, surgical procedures, and treatment advancements of diseases in their fields. Explore the role of nutritional factors in the onset and progression of diseases, and how to integrate with various clinical specialties to provide comprehensive management plans for patients [7] . In collaboration with the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, we study the nutritional needs of patients in the rehabilitation phase and the impact of nutritional support on the rehabilitation process. We explore how to develop nutritional plans to promote functional recovery in patients with conditions such as fractures and post-stroke sequelae.

Typical cases are selected each week for in-depth discussion. In outpatient teaching, actual cases are introduced. For example, in weight management, the responsible nutritionist presents the patient’s specific situation, including their dietary habits, disease status, physical measurements, nutritional intervention process, and results. Through case analysis, students will combine the theoretical knowledge they have learned about energy balance and nutrient metabolism with the formulation and implementation of actual nutritional treatment plans, thereby enhancing their ability to solve practical problems [8] . In clinical teaching, through lectures by responsible nutritionists on patient conditions, nutritional risk screening scores, nutritional assessment results, physical measurements, and laboratory indicators, nutritional treatment plans and implementation effects, students jointly analyze the rationality and shortcomings of the plans and propose suggestions for improvement [9] [10] .

At the same time, students and instructors are encouraged to share their experiences and new knowledge gained from clinical work, academic conferences, and literature reading, as well as advanced nutritional treatment cases from home and abroad, to broaden the team’s horizons, promote knowledge sharing, and cultivate innovative thinking.

Conduct regular nutrition education training sessions, with participants divided into groups to give 3 - 5 minute presentations and showcase their slideshows [11] . The content mainly includes basic nutritional knowledge, nutritional guidance for special populations, nutritional treatment for common diseases, analysis and discussion of typical cases, and summaries and insights from internships at various stages. Students and instructors listen together, and instructors score based on the content of the presentation, language expression, slide production, demeanor, and overall effect [12] . After all students have finished their speeches, the supervising teacher will provide targeted feedback, acknowledging strengths, pointing out areas for improvement, and offering suggestions for future development.

In recent years, the Nutrition Department of the 989th Hospital of the Logistics Support Force has released a large number of public accounts and short videos through the Internet and new media channels. In the initial stage, interns will receive training in WeChat official account writing and short video production techniques [13] , including excellent new media copywriting techniques and basic video shooting knowledge and techniques. During the practical phase, the supervising teacher determines the science popularization theme and content, and the intern writes the copy and shoots and edits the video. Finally, after approval by the department head, the content will be used for departmental new media promotion or submitted to provincial or municipal science popularization short video competitions.

Each intern has their own strengths and interests, and after completing the regular rotation internship, students are given some flexibility in their choices. After gaining a comprehensive understanding of the internship content and work processes of each group and mastering basic skills, interns can re-select their groups based on their career plans and interests to undergo 3 - 4 months of consolidation and in-depth learning to become specialized nutritionists.

Assessment and evaluation are crucial components of the internship training model. When it comes to training interns for medical nutrition professional positions, accurately evaluating students’ abilities and conducting appropriate assessments and effective evaluations have become key to ensuring the quality of internship training [14] .

Traditional written and oral examinations can assess students’ theoretical knowledge, but it is difficult to evaluate their practical skills, ability to respond to unexpected situations, and ability to communicate with patients. In addition, contemporary college students suffer from significantly reduced strength and endurance due to prolonged sitting, late nights, psychological depression, and reduced exercise, resulting in generally poor physical fitness.

Therefore, in addition to conventional theoretical assessments, the internship program incorporates practical evaluations such as anthropometric measurements, nutritional screening and assessment, teamwork skills, communication and presentation abilities, case analysis, dietary guidance plan development, and professional ethics. Physical fitness assessments are also conducted, integrating the military-style management characteristics of military hospitals into the internship training to ensure a comprehensive evaluation of students’ job competence from multiple dimensions ( Table 2 ). Regular assessments are conducted, immediate feedback on the results is provided after completion, strengths and weaknesses are identified, and suggestions for improvement are offered. Internship performance is included in students’ academic records and serves as an important reference for evaluating excellence, recommending students for awards, and recommending them for employment. At the same time, based on the assessment results, instructors summarize their experiences and lessons learned from teaching internships, optimize teaching content and methods, and improve teaching quality.

Over the past three years, we have accepted a total of 48 interns, all of whom are third-year students majoring in Medical Nutrition at Luoyang Vocational and Technical College. This includes 16 students from the Class of 2020, 14 from the Class of 2021, and 18 from the Class of 2022. The group comprises 7 male students and 41 female students, all of whom have achieved passing grades in all subjects during their first and second years of study. Under the new medical science perspective, through a clinical internship teaching model oriented towards job competency, we compared the average scores of three groups of interns before and after their internships using a multidimensional assessment (see Table 2 ). The interns showed significant improvement in all aspects of their abilities ( Table 3 ).

The 989th Hospital of the Logistics Support Force provides interns with opportunities to participate in various nutrition competitions and promotional activities. Every year, the Nutrition Department hosts the Luoyang Nutrition Society Health Science Popularization Competition, which brings together about 20 interns from hospitals across the city. The interns from our hospital’s Nutrition Department performed outstandingly at this event, achieving excellent results. Compared with interns from other units in the same grade, 82% of them won third prize or higher.

Under the new medical paradigm, clinical internship instruction aligned with job competency requirements and market demands ensures the timely updating of teaching content [15] . According to the school’s employment rate statistics, the high-quality employment rate of students in the last two years has increased by nearly 40%. According to a student satisfaction survey conducted by employers, satisfaction rates were as high as 95% or above. Practice has demonstrated that this mentoring model not only enhances students’ job adaptability and career development potential, but also significantly boosts employment rates and satisfaction levels, thereby supplying more high-caliber, application-oriented talents to various industries.