HHV Internships

Location:  1613 N. Swan Road, Suite 250,Tucson, AZ 85712
Positions per semester: 1

Hospice is a patient-centered philosophy of care that supports individuals with life-limiting illness. Arista Hospice includes expert medical management of pain and symptoms along with emotional and spiritual support centered on the needs of the individuals and their families. Hospice care is available wherever an individual lives, whether it’s a traditional home, assisted living facility or in a nursing home. Interns will learn the basics of hospice and gain an overall working knowledge of what is involved in the care of the patient and family, along with the organizational components involved and disciplines who work together to provide compassionate, professional hospice services. Interns will learn through:

• Reading general hospice information.
• Viewing educational videos around hospice needs.
• Sitting with various hospice office staff to learn what is involved with each task (receiving initial calls for admission, billing, insurance, human resources, quality assurance, documentation, supplies, etc.)  Interns will assist staff with a variety of these tasks throughout the term.
• Learning what each hospice discipline does by talking directly with the clinical staff and possibly visiting patients with the staff where possible. Interns will gain an understanding of each discipline’s role and how the disciplines work together as a team. The intern will attend Interdisciplinary Team Meetings to see how disciplines work together to provide physical, emotional, spiritual, and social support for the patient, the patient’s family, friends, and caregivers. Disciplines include:  Physicians/Medical Directors, Nurses, Social Workers, Chaplains, Aids and Volunteers.
• Interns may, after training and education, be assigned to visit a patient weekly for the duration of
  the semester.

Location: 535 N. Wilmot Rd. Ste. 101
Number of positions per semester: 2

The University Of Arizona’s ‘Children’s Postinfectious Autoimmune Encephalopathy’ (CPAE) Center is a multidisciplinary clinic specializing in the diagnosis, treatment, and research of Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome (PANS) and Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections (PANDAS). PANS and PANDAS are two related disorders that result from an incorrect immune response that results in inflammation in the brain. As a result, patients experience varying symptoms, such as OCD, restrictive eating, anxiety, tics, cognitive regression, and more. As a multidisciplinary clinic, the clinic is comprised of a developmental and behavioral pediatrician, an immunologist, a neurologist, a behavioral psychologist and a psychiatrist, who all work in tandem to see patients in a single visit.  

Interns will attend a once-weekly clinic, where they will assist in administering a ‘Physical and Neurological Examination for Soft Signs’ (PANESS). The PANESS is comprised of a series of movement-related tasks that focus on dexterity and coordination, the results of which provide a clear sense of subtle neurological abnormalities that are oftentimes missed on a typical physical examination. The exam takes about 15 minutes and requires careful observation, documentation, and scoring that our physicians then use in their diagnosis and treatment. Once they complete all assigned PANESS tests during each clinic visit, interns will then shadow in the room of the last patient to observe how each specialty approaches care for this population.

Location: 655 N. Alvernon Way | Suite 228 | Tucson, Arizona 85711 
Positions per semester: 1-2

The University of Arizona Department of Family and Community Medicine started Camp Wellness in 2009 to address disparities in health and life expectancy between people with serious mental illness and the
general population.  

Interns will observe and participate in health and wellness classes for individuals recovering from mental illness and/or addiction.  Learn about life skills training and health promotion.  Gain experience with program assessment and developing skills in qualitative and quantitative data collection, including surveys
and interviews.

Location: 1224 E. Lowell St. - Campus Health (CAPS is located on the 3rd floor SE corner)
Positions per semester: 1-2

The CAPS Mental Health Promotion Intern, in collaboration with a supervising CAPS provider and CAPS/HPPS collaboration group will contribute to ongoing CAPS and Campus Health mental health and resilience programming, free online resources and services for students, and other educational digital content.  This might include projects such as:

• Recording videos on mental health and resilience-related topics 
• Creating content to promote CAPS groups and workshops (website, social media, flyers, posters, videos, etc.) 
• Participate in the update and design of the CAPS Friend2Friend and Suicide Prevention websites 
• Generating ideas for new mental health campaigns for topics such as grief, sleep, resilience, suicide prevention, etc.  
• Collaborating in the Stronger Than resilience initiative 
• Participating in outreach events such as depression screening day, suicide prevention month activities, and other mental health-focused events 
• Collaborating with cultural and resource center counselors and liaisons to create inclusive media and messaging 
• Ongoing review and enhancement of the CAPS website 
• Gathering and analyzing quantitative and qualitative student feedback on CAPS/Campus Health programs, services, and resources, etc. 
• Assist in developing presentations around CAPS and mental health 

Location: 1501 N. Campbell Ave, Tucson, AZ  85724-5035
Number of positions per semester: 1

There are a variety of potential projects for students and at least three faculty interested in hosting a student intern in CDDOM and the Division of Endocrinology. Students could receive experience in research combining any combination of a laboratory experience, a data analysis experience, and involvement in learning about academic/community projects involving communities with health disparities. For example, using biobank data, a student could answer questions related to how sleep patterns or depression are related to diabetes or other health conditions. Another possibility would be the relationships among families, disease, and social determinants of health. Experiences could be tailored to the interests of the student.

Location: Numerous locations throughout Tucson.
Number of positions per semester: 3-4

One of the most innovative, highly-regarded, non-profit health centers in the United States, El Rio Health is an outpatient community health center that strives to provide inclusive and culturally appropriate health care.  Numerous internship opportunities are available working with physicians, dentists, nutritionists, pharmacists, and/or nurse practitioners, Past interns have worked in the areas of social determinants of health, diabetes education, prevention of hypertension, weight loss, etc. Projects can be tailored to student’s interests. Activities often can involve interactions with patients in  clinical and/or non-clinical settings.

Location: 655 N Alvernon, Suite 160D, Tucson, AZ
Positions per semester: 2

The UA Mobile Health Program is a free medical program for uninsured patients. They host 2 family medicine and 2 prenatal clinics a week among 8 community sites across Tucson. They also offer COVID-19 vaccine clinics for hard-to-reach populations, including rural communities and binational vaccine events with to vaccinate those who cannot cross the border.  Note they they prefer an intern who is a bilingual English/Spanish speaker. However, the internship description can be modified to accommodate language abilities.  Projects can include the following:

• Build database for tracking family medicine clinic impacts (tracking recruitment, demographic data, patient outcomes).
• Call patients to have them complete a patient satisfaction survey.
• Create and execute of a social media plan advertising program services and amplifying public
  health messages
• Shadow one 4-hour family medicine clinic every other week
• Assist in organizing supplies in our Mobile Health Suite
• Assist with COVID-19 vaccine clinic needs, such as data entry, supply prep, or scribing at events.
• Based on the interests of the student, identify community resources for patients (i.e. diabetes management resource guide).
• Identify PrEP/PEP patients who have timed out of patient navigation services offered through other non-profits to ensure continuity of care.
• Assist in projects based off emerging clinic needs and interest of the student.

Location: 3500 S 12th Ave, Tucson, AZ 85713
Number of positions per semester: 2

The intern will work with school nursing and social work personnel to assess and refer students for mental health, counseling, reproductive health services, health prevention and promotion, domestic violence, addictions treatment, and much more. Pueblo has developed highly innovative programs for addressing the many challenging issues facing their student population which include, family conflict, incarceration, deportation of family members, pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, drug addiction, food insecurity, and homelessness.

Location: 102 N Plumer Ave, Tucson 85719
Positions per semester: 1

For 50 years, Teenage Parent High School has been supporting pregnant and parenting teens to continue and graduate from high school.  The school offers four nurseries, staffed with experienced Infant Care Specialists who care for babies and mentor teens in best parenting practices.  Interns will shadow the school nurse as they interact with students and attend to their health needs, be it that they are pregnant or have already given birth.  Together with the school nurse, students will work very closely with the social worker and school counselor to support the students with basic needs of housing, food, mental health, transportation, just to name a few of the many needs which students have on a daily basis.

Location:  Tucson Fire Department Headquarters 300 S Fire Central Pl, Tucson, AZ 85701
Number of positions available: 2

TC3 is a community paramedicine program run out of the which uses social workers, paramedics, and firefighters to identify high utilizers of the 911 system and to connect them with needed behavioral health, medical, and/or social services.  Internship involves working closely with the team to help develop policies and procedures for the program, client navigation tools, and creating multimedia resources for field crews. Interns will have the opportunity to accompany the team in the field and interact with clients.

Location: 5910 N La Cholla Blvd, Tucson, AZ 85741
Positions per semester: 1

Interns will learn about the barriers that affect health outcomes in diabetes care particularly pertaining to their ability to understand their own health insurance benefits and the cost of prescriptions. Interns will shadow physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nutritionists to learn about the manifestations and risks of diabetes, how it is monitored and treated, how complications are prevented.

They will shadow medical assistants to learn about the authorization process involved in obtaining approval by the health insurance to start or direct diabetes related therapies and or monitoring systems. They will shadow front staff to learn about the process of insurance verification and co-pay/ co-insurance systems. And they will shadow billing office staff to learn about the complexity of third party payor billing and payment systems.

Location: 3922 N Mountain Ave, Tucson AZ 85719
Number of positions per semester: 1

Tu Nidito provides individual and group support and operates on the belief that it is valuable for grieving families to share their stories, memories, experiences and feelings with others who are going through a similar situation.
Interns may work directly with children, teens, young adults, and caregivers impacted by the diagnosis of a serious medical condition or the death of someone special. In addition, they may also work behind the scenes to ensure all programs and events have the administrative and financial support they need to be successful. 

Location: 270 S Stone Ave, Tucson, AZ 85719
Positions per semester: 2

Since 2018, the Tucson Police Department’s Substance Use Resource Team has implemented a deflection model for dealing with illegal drug use.  of utilizing traditional police interventions (i.e., arrest, booking, and charging), deflection relies on law enforcement to be the referral source to community-based drug treatment and mental health services prior to potential crises. In this way, law enforcement opens up new treatment access points not previously available to those in need. Interns will observe the work that SURT officers are doing within the community and conduct research to identify and apply metrics for evaluating the program’s effectiveness and responsiveness to community needs. Students will produce a written assessment drawing on research and personal observations and reflections to evaluate how they think the police are addressing substance misuse, houselessness, and untreated mental health within the community.

Location: 630 N Craycroft Rd, Tucson, AZ 85711
Number of positions per semester: 2

Paid internship. Requires training and CPR certification. Cost is approx. $150 prior to start of internship. 2/3 of your time would be providing direct services to a client with the remainder spent attending their weekly staffing meetings to learn more about the needs of their clients, the challenges of meeting those needs, and how the organization meets them.