Graduate internships are “employment experiences of finite duration, normally assumed to have a learning component to them, undertaken in the early stages following graduation” say Hunt & Scott (2020: 465), who emphasise delimitation, “because there is no agreed definition of an internship”. Conflating graduate internships with work placements is not helpful, because the latter are normally undertaken whilst studying. Although ‘internship’ opportunities are widely advertised, no such employment status, for example, exists in UK law.
Academic literature recognises the importance of a ‘clinical placements’ (medical terminology for work-integrated learning) in graduate nursing programs. During clinical placement students may, for example, choose the nature of placement based on clinical interest. The objective of clinical placement is the acquisition of advanced practice nursing (APN) skills, increased understanding of the APN role, and development APN competencies, which “include direct comprehensive care, optimizing health system, education, research, leadership, consultation, and collaboration” indicate Cretu and Stilos. (2021: 494). During placement post-graduate students could further “build networks, advance their personal and professional development, and validate their motivation and desire to pursue a particular professional area of” APN. Preceptorship, a nursing education term for supervision and mentoring, plays a significant role with a learner-centred teaching approach and philosophy, incorporating “scientific knowledge, evidence-based practice, reflection and knowledge transformation, communication engagement, and possession of a respectful and responsible attitude” say Cretu and Stilos. (2021: 495). Such preceptoring provides ongoing encouragement and support. Students learn “by doing, questioning, reflecting, and engaging in discussions with patients and healthcare professionals, capturing the APN competencies whereby a fusion of knowledge and clinical skills happened in real-time”.
“Internships and field placements are a critical component of public health education in that they help ensure that future public health workers are able to apply theory and concepts to practice” say Dreyzehner; Williams and Harkness (2017: 10S), who indicate that collaboration between academic institutions and public health agencies is required to identify successfully develop competencies required in the field of practice. They caution that considerable time and resources from public health departments are needed to make these practice-based field experiences successful.
Hunt & Scott (2020: 465) remark that “graduates are increasingly called upon to exhibit additional markers of employability over and above educational qualifications” and that work placements, internships and other extra-curricular activities (ECAs) are various means to setting oneself apart and enhanced employability. However, they cite Perlin’s (2012) publication ‘How to earn nothing and learn little in the brave new economy’ and remark that evidence exists “that some internships amount to little more than exploitation with unpaid interns carrying out routine tasks that would otherwise have fallen to paid members of staff”. They mention that research “point to significant differences between paid and unpaid internships in terms of perceived development, with unpaid internships viewed as less developmental”. Furthermore, that “unpaid internships generally do not appear to confer long-term career advantages in the same way that HE work placements do” and caution against “those resorting to unpaid internships becoming ghettoised in relatively precarious employment paths”.
Cretu, E. & Stilos, K. (2021). The value of a post-graduate clinical placement for nursing students. Reflections in education, in Canadian Oncology Nursing Journal, 31(4), 494 – 499. Electronically accessible from http://canadianoncologynursingjournal.com/index.php/conj/article/view/1233
Dreyzehner, J.; Williams, C. & Harkness, E. (2017). More than just an intern: utilizing the post-graduate medical education model to increase the value of field placement experiences for public health program graduates. Pedagogy in Health Promotion, 3(1_suppl), 10S-12S. Electronically accessible from doi:10.1177/2373379917698698
Hunt, W. & Scott, P. (2020). Paid and unpaid graduate internships: prevalence, quality and motivations at six months after graduation. Studies in Higher Education, 45(2), 464-476, Electronically accessible from https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2018.1541450
Perlin, R. 2012. Intern Nation: How to earn nothing and learn little in the brave new economy. New York: Verso.
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