Some professional degree programs require an internship. The internship consists of mentoring sessions that prepare the student for the experience; exercises and simulations in which technical, interpersonal, and methodological skills are developed in protected situations before or during experimentation in real-world settings; direct practical experience in the field, with supervision; sessions for reflection and reworking of the experience; and constant feedback.

The minimum credits reserved for the internship represent the total commitment necessary for the student to achieve the expected competency profile.

Internship activities enable the student to acquire specific skills of professional interest. The purposes of the internship are:

• Develop professional skills
• Developing professional identity and belonging
• Anticipatory socialization to work

Tutors of the same professional profile supervise and guide students, and a lecturer of the specific professional profile coordinates this.

To ensure an effective internship experience for the student consistent with the acquisition of disciplinary knowledge/skills, taking into account the imperative need to ensure safe and quality care for the users assisted by the students, St. Thomas University.

1. Enter into agreements and arrangements with international facilities that meet eligibility requirements for activities, service delivery, and facilities. Internship sites must meet and maintain suitability requirements established and evaluated by the STU to ensure a facilitative learning environment for the trainee student. The student is responsible for identifying and proposing to the Dean of his or her major that the facility be evaluated for conducting the internship.
2. Integrate simulation into health care training through low-fidelity and medium-fidelity simulations, with excellent results, even in low-resource settings.

The World Health Organization (WHO) document “Transforming and Scaling up the Education and Training of Health Professionals” (WHO, 2013) strongly recommends the use of simulation.” Recommendation 5 states, “Providers of education and training of health professionals should use high-fidelity simulation methods in adequately resourced settings and low-fidelity methods in low-resource settings.”

The STU encourages and emphasizes simulated practice before clinical practice, reflecting a deep respect for human beings and their dignity in all clinical practice settings as part of its educational philosophy.

How simulation is integrated into St. Thomas University training courses varies widely: it can be integrated into a theory course as a practicum component or specific clinical courses. Simulation can be used almost exclusively to learn and train specific techniques, or it can focus on developing more comprehensive, cross-cutting skills (communication techniques with the patient and other team members, decision-making, management of adverse events, and leadership), gradually incorporated into increasingly complex scenarios.