HHV Internships

Location: 1613 N. Swan Road, Suite 250,Tucson, AZ 85712

Gain firsthand exposure to end-of-life care and learn how serious illness, dying, grief, family caregiving, culture, and beliefs about death shape the experience of patients and families. Past interns have shadowed nurses, physicians, social workers, chaplains, and volunteers; attended interdisciplinary team meetings; completed dementia-care training; spoken with families considering hospice; and learned about respite care for overwhelmed caregivers. You’ll see how hospice shifts the focus of healthcare from curing disease to comfort, dignity, communication, and quality of life, while also learning how cultural understandings of death can influence whether families understand or feel comfortable accepting hospice care.

Location: 535 N. Wilmot Rd., Ste. 101, Tucson, AZ 85711

As an intern with CPAE, you’ll work with children and families navigating complex neuropsychiatric conditions such as PANS/PANDAS and see how developmental pediatrics, immunology, psychology, and behavioral health come together in multidisciplinary care. Past interns have observed clinic visits, learned how providers incorporate children’s daily lives and family experiences into treatment, and examined the emotional toll that sudden behavioral and psychiatric changes can place on entire families. You’ll also explore the challenges surrounding contested illnesses, including provider skepticism, difficulties obtaining appropriate referrals, and the consequences when patients and families feel that their experiences are not believed.

Location: 101 W Irvington Rd #3c, Tucson, AZ 85714

Free community clinic serving patients who may face significant barriers to healthcare, including lack of insurance, limited transportation, and other socioeconomic challenges. Past interns have interacted with patients, physicians, and volunteers; created patient education materials on conditions such as diabetes and hypertension; helped analyze which health conditions and specialties are most commonly seen at the clinic; and examined why some patients depend on free healthcare services. The experience is especially valuable for understanding health disparities, access to care, and how patients’ social and economic circumstances shape their health and their ability to navigate the healthcare system.

Location: Various locations around Tucson

Shadow pediatricians and other professionals caring for children and families in a Federally Qualified Health Center serving underserved Tucson communities. Past interns have observed well-child and sick visits and learned from dental hygienists, behavioral health specialists, and community health advisors who connect families with medical, dental, behavioral, and social resources. You’ll see how food and housing insecurity, insurance, health literacy, and other social conditions can shape childhood health issues such as obesity and diabetes and affect families’ ability to follow through on care. The experience provides a close look at how community health centers integrate medical care with resources that address needs extending far beyond the exam room.

Location: Various locations around Tucson

Observe pediatric dental residents caring for children and learn how trust, communication, family circumstances, and health literacy shape oral health. Past interns have shadowed clinical care, observed how dentists adapt communication to a child’s age and personality, and learned how departments such as research, quality improvement, and administration support care behind the scenes. You’ll also see how families’ access to information and resources can affect diet, oral-health practices, missed appointments, and treatment decisions, while learning to understand patients’ choices in the context of their lived circumstances rather than judging them in isolation.

Location: 1030 N. Alvernon Way, Tucson, AZ 85711

Work with adults living with serious mental illness in a peer-supported, recovery-oriented program that treats health as emotional, social, occupational, physical, and mental—not simply clinical. Past interns have participated in classes on nutrition, exercise, stress management, communication, and cooking; built relationships with participants; prepared hygiene and wound-care supplies; analyzed program outcomes; and helped organize Arizona Palooza, which connects underserved community members with behavioral and mental health resources. You’ll see how housing, transportation, social support, trust in healthcare, and other life circumstances shape recovery, while learning that recovery is rarely linear and cannot be defined for someone else.

Location: 1011 N Craycroft Rd Ste 301, Tucson, AZ 85711

Work closely with adults whose lives have been changed by aphasia and other communication disorders, learning how loss of language can affect autonomy, confidence, relationships, transportation, and participation in everyday life. Past interns have taken part in aphasia groups, observed speech-language pathology practice, helped members navigate accessibility services such as Sun Van, supported creative and community projects, and designed communication activities using the Life Participation Approach to Aphasia. You’ll learn how social supports, accessible systems, and patient-centered approaches can help people reclaim independence and remain active in their communities.

Location: 2916 E Broadway Blvd, Tucson, AZ 85716

Work with refugee families navigating healthcare across barriers such as language, transportation, insurance, disability, cultural expectations, and changing public policies. Past interns have helped schedule appointments and screenings, arrange transportation, deliver health education with interpreters, analyze refugee health data, and develop projects in reproductive health and disability access. You’ll learn how incomplete medical records, loss of insurance, stigma, and unfamiliarity with U.S. healthcare systems can affect access to care, and how medical providers, government agencies, and community organizations work together to respond.

Location: 655 N. Alvernon Way, Suite 160D, Tucson, AZ 85719

Free clinic serving uninsured and underinsured patients, many of whom are undocumented migrants. Learn how medical care is shaped by transportation, language, insurance, cost, immigration concerns, and access to medications and follow-up services. Past interns have shadowed family medicine physicians and residents, observed care for chronic illness, prenatal and mental health needs, helped organize donated medications and supplies, and developed resources for patients who cannot afford ongoing care—for example, connecting patients with diabetes to affordable testing supplies, healthy food, and community services after donated supplies run out. You’ll learn how clinicians build trust and adapt treatment to what patients can realistically access while working within limited resources to provide care that might otherwise be unavailable.

Location: 175 W Irvington Rd, Tucson, AZ 85714

Learn how public health professionals investigate disease and respond to health problems that connect people, animals, and the environment through a One Health approach. Past interns have shadowed epidemiologists working on zoonotic, vector-borne, and environmental conditions, attended outbreak-response meetings, and contributed to Healthy Companions, a program that brings human and veterinary services together for people experiencing homelessness and their pets. The experience also exposes you to structural challenges in public health, including limited funding, dependence on grants, and the difficulty of building trust with marginalized communities when disease reporting or government systems are involved.

Location: 2155 E Allen Rd, Tucson, AZ 85719

Work with families whose children are undergoing serious medical treatment and see firsthand how illness affects an entire family, not just the patient. Many families are also navigating financial strain, housing insecurity, transportation challenges, language barriers, and the difficulty of traveling from rural or border communities to obtain specialized care. Past interns have supported families directly, helped connect them with food, housing, transportation, mental health, and financial resources, and contributed to bereavement support for families experiencing the death of a child. You’ll learn how a child’s health and recovery are deeply connected to the emotional, social, and economic stability of the family.

Location: 1050 S Park Ave, Tucson, AZ 85719

Work with women experiencing homelessness and learn how trauma, poverty, housing instability, disability, language, and limited access to healthcare shape both health and help-seeking. Past interns have supported guests throughout the shelter, interacted with nurse practitioners and other healthcare providers, assisted with basic clinical tasks, and developed accessible health education materials on wound care, dehydration, heat illness, burns, and other first-aid needs. You’ll also learn to use trauma-informed communication with women whose experiences may include violence, chronic illness, and profound distrust or exhaustion with healthcare systems, while seeing why trust, dignity, accessible information, and social services can become essential parts of healthcare itself.

Location: 3922 N Mountain Ave, Tucson, AZ 85719

You’ll work with children and families experiencing grief and learn how loss is shaped by age, family dynamics, communication style, neurodiversity, culture, and access to supportive community resources. Past interns have participated in grief-support groups, observed the organization’s companioning model, and learned how children may express grief through behavior, art, sensory activity, silence, and body language as well as words. Interns have also helped develop visual and sensory supports for neurodivergent children, learning how support systems can be redesigned around children’s emotional and communication needs rather than expecting children to adapt to rigid models of care.

Location: 5910 N La Cholla Blvd, Tucson, AZ 85741

In this private outpatient endocrinology practice, you will learn how chronic illnesses such as type 1 and type 2 diabetes are shaped not only by medical treatment, but also by insurance coverage, medication costs, food access, and other socioeconomic circumstances. Past interns have shadowed endocrinologists and physician assistants, spoken directly with patients about their experiences managing diabetes, and examined how insurance denials and prior authorization requirements can delay or prevent access to needed medications. One intern interviewed 47 patients with diabetes and found that 37 had experienced medication delays or denials because of cost or insurance coverage, providing a close look at how structural features of the healthcare system directly influence patients’ ability to manage their health.

Location: 270 S Stone, Tucson, AZ, 85701

Special unit of police officers and social workers who respond in the field to people whose substance use is often intertwined with homelessness, behavioral health needs, poverty, and repeated contact with the criminal legal system. Past interns have accompanied CORE deployments, observed interactions with people experiencing substance use problems, interviewed officers and social workers, and examined alternatives to arrest such as deflection, video court, and referrals to treatment and community-based services. You’ll learn how police, courts, treatment providers, social services, and other agencies attempt to respond to substance use as both a health and public-safety issue.

Location: 1224 E Lowell St, Tucson, AZ 85721 (CAPS is located on the 3rd floor SE corner)

Gain hands-on experience helping make health and wellness resources more accessible and relevant to UA students. Past interns have participated in outreach and tabling, health education, wellness events, team meetings, and projects addressing sexual health, mental health, substance use, health insurance, stigma, and barriers to seeking care. Depending on your interests and the needs of the team, you may also help develop educational materials, contribute to social media, or plan and carry out your own health promotion project while learning how communication, privacy, trust, and institutional systems affect whether students actually use available health resources.

Location: 1100 E University Blvd #200w, Tucson, AZ 85719

As a peer mentor with LifeSTEP, you’ll build a sustained one-on-one relationship with an adolescent experiencing challenges such as poverty, depression, anxiety, or ADHD. Past interns have met weekly with their mentees through activities such as hiking and exploring Tucson, using that time to build trust, listen, provide emotional support, and help develop life skills. The experience challenges students to look beyond diagnoses or the idea of “fixing” an individual and instead consider how family circumstances, poverty, environment, and other structural conditions shape a young person’s well-being and opportunities.

Location: 630 N Craycroft Rd, Tucson, AZ 85711

Learn how disability care extends beyond medical treatment to everyday questions of autonomy, dignity, family support, transportation, housing, income, and access to community resources. Past interns have trained and worked as direct care workers providing respite and attendant care to people with physical and cognitive disabilities, learned disability-rights protections and person-centered communication, helped families connect with food, housing, and financial resources, and participated in advocacy around state funding for home- and community-based services. You’ll also see how caregiver availability, nonprofit finances, and public funding can determine whether people with disabilities are able to live safely and independently in their homes and communities.

Location: 738 N 5th Ave #220, Tucson, AZ 85705

You’ll gain firsthand exposure to out-of-hospital birth, prenatal care, and the midwifery model of care while learning how autonomy, trust, culture, race, and access to resources shape pregnancy and childbirth. Past interns have shadowed clinic visits and home births, completed newborn resuscitation training, supported birth-story workshops, and helped organize a fundraiser for a birth equity fund providing financial assistance to birthing people of color. You’ll see how midwives balance clinical knowledge and safety with respect for individual choices while examining the historical and structural forces behind racial disparities in maternal health and unequal treatment within the healthcare system.