Professional

My department is trying to start an exercise physiology internship program. Wondering if anyone has experience and has any resources to help? I have a call this week to the EP Department at our state school to find out more information on their end. Any/all resources would be helpful.

Hi Dana,

Not quite exercise physiology, but my field work coordinator had to do this for me during my school internship. I wanted to intern at a rural hospital that had never worked with an EP or CEP before.

The cardiac rehab at the time was ran by two part-time nurses. My field work coordinator gave them the CEP domains that should be included within an internship, and we modified it to that specific hospital. It also took a lot of work on my end to educate the nurses, medical director, and manager on what a CEP was and my scope of practice.

Fast forward, I now had a full-time position here.

Hi Dana, I am our clinical internship coordinator at my university, so I am operating on the other end (working with hospitals to get our CEP students placed) and would be happy to provide information on my end that might be helpful. On our end, we are always happy to develop connections with local hospitals to have more sites to place our students, since we are in a rural area with limited site options. We have students work with hospitals both as internship credit and outside of official credit hours (i.e. in order to receive additional clinical hours to be able to sit for the ACSM-CEP). Most hospitals require an affiliation agreement between the hospital and the university, and each hospital has various requirements for onboarding - these are the two largest areas where I find issues, but once we have an affiliation agreement established (normally some back and forth with the legal teams of the hospital and the institution) and we get adjusted to the onboarding requirements, it is a smooth process. If students are doing hours outside of official credit hours, we don't require much on our ends, but if they are doing formal internship hours, we require site supervisors (usually lead EP) to provide progress reports and feedback. We have a list of requirements that our students need to accomplish while there (i.e. check offs for BP, Ex Rx, clean ups, etc) and I will visit the site regularly to check in and speak with the lead EP and see how the students are doing.

Not sure if this is helpful, feel free to call my office 828-262-7214, or email me kappusrm@appstate.edu if you'd like more information!

I've been working with several different Universities in our area providing internship programs for the last 20 years. We have established affiliation agreements with five different Universities that are within about 1 to 2 hours from us and one that is 3 hours away. Once the Affiliation agreement is signed between the University and the hospital then I set students up with Student Services. Most hospital have a student services department as well. They take care of background check and all other required documentation. Each University we've worked with has my work contact information, usually either the department Head or a professor or some large Universities even have an Internship Coordinator. Before a student proceeds with the Student Services department I interview them and discuss our internship program to make sure its a good fit for them and that they are a good fit for us. I dont like to take Practicum students as they only usually have to complete 40 hours. The programs I like the most are the ones that require 250 hours up to 400 hours. They can learn so much more in that time frame and usually they have to complete a project as well. Once we decide to go forward with the student and they are approved by Student Services, I request the Internship requirements. I will follow the internship requirements to make sure we are meeting all the class objectives. I am the Supervisor of Cardiac, Pulmonary and Vascular Rehab. They stay with our department for the majority of the time. However, during the course of the internship I will set them up with other areas of the hospital that is applicable to Exercise Physiology. I have them meet with our Wellness Services department to learn about Employee Wellness and Health Coaching. They go to the CV lab and observe NM stress testing, Bruce protocol stress testing, stress echos, EKG, echos, TEEs, cath lab, PFTs, etc. I set them up with a time to meet with Registered Dietitians and Diabetes Educators. We also have a hospital based wellness and fitness facility affiliated with our hospital that is a 65,000 square foot Medical Fitness Association certified facility. They spend one day a week there and follow along with Exercise Specialists, Fitness Management/Director, Aerobic Instructors, Aquatics, Personal Trainers, Clinical Exercise Programs (they have 8 clinical program tracks, such as Phase III/IV Cardiac, Pulmonary, Oncology, Bariatric/Weight Management, etc). They also have Human Performance Speed school for school teams/travel teams, etc and they will participate in that as well. Its a very well rounded encompassing internship. I will work with our Wellness Center and if the student prefers more hours there then they'll spend time with them or if they prefer more clinical they will be in Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehab. I do require a special project for Master level students. But most of their programs require some type of project anyways. I meet with the student weekly as the Internship Supervisor to oversee it all since I am an RCEP, but they will be around and observing lots of different disciplines as mentioned above and including RNs and RTs.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any questions.