Thanks to funding from the Gladstone award, Prof. Holmes can once again offer a J-Term academic internship course called “Health Policy in Action”. This course will combine a four day/week internship at a Vermont health care organization with one session/week in the classroom, providing the opportunity to apply liberal arts learning to real-world experience in addressing critical issues facing Vermonters. Students will spend 30 hours a week on-site at various organizations in Middlebury, Burlington and Montpelier. Class time will be spent debriefing the internship experience, building skills relevant to health policy analysis and working on the research project. Grading will be based on participation, evaluation by internship sponsor, evidence of personal growth, and performance on the final project.
IMPORTANT: Enrollment in the
course is by approval only. Interested
applicants must submit a resume to Professor Jessica Holmes (jholmes@middlebury.edu with
subject line JTERM) and a short online application (LINK to
app is here: https://forms.gle/KZR5UresBwgcyPse6)
by Oct 20. Please review internship descriptions below to rank your
preferences in the application.
Please note:
For Montpelier internships: The
College has rented a shared house for students that is a walkable mile from
downtown (the site of all internships). Students will have to cover most of
their own food expenses during the week and will be expected to return to
Middlebury College on weekends. There are some funds to defray gas expenses
to/from Montpelier once a week and students with cars may be asked to offer
rides to students without cars.
For Burlington internships:
Students will stay on campus but there are some funds to defray travel expenses
(gas and/or ACTR to Burlington). The College will cover hotel accommodations in
Burlington during bad weather.
Below you will find more specific
information about the internships available (For more info about each
organization, check out their website). If you have questions, please reach out
to Professor Jessica Holmes (jholmes@middlebury.edu).
Internships:
Porter Medical Center
(Middlebury VT)
Sponsor: Ron Hallman, VP of
Development and Public Relations
Project will focus on developing
strategies with specific tactics/partnerships/resources to address a number of
community needs that emerged in Porter’s 2018 Community Health Needs Assessment
report (i.e. lack of transportation, affordable housing, substance abuse,
etc.).
University of Vermont Health
Network (Burlington, VT)
Sponsor: Eve Hoar, Network
Director, Strategic & Business Planning
The UVM Health Network Strategic & Business Planning
team welcomes two interns to do deeper exploration of topics in
healthcare innovation and their application to healthcare delivery in the UVM
Health Network service area. Students will work on a month-long project
and have opportunities to attend meetings with network affiliate leaders at one
or more locations around the Network. Project topics will be determined
as January approaches, but potential project topics include:
- Gaming applications in healthcare
- Patient access centers: recommendations for UVM Health Network
- Geri-psych care: innovations for consideration
- Aging in Place: what are the implications for the care continuum and for the economics of population health
- Workforce issues, including the recruitment of providers and nurses to Vermont: new ideas that are working in other rural areas
- Population health approaches for patients with cognitive decline
Bi-State Primary Care
Association (Montpelier, VT)
Sponsor: Helen Labun, Vt
Director of Public Policy
Intern will work with the team to
help publish a short podcast series that explains basic health care policy
concepts and terms. The format for the podcast is a series of short interviews,
segmented by themes, with show notes that include additional details and links
to additional resources. The intern will help create the show notes, gathering
background information ahead of interviews, participating in interviews, fact
checking, generating ideas for future topics, and helping build distribution
channels for the podcast.
Vermont Association of
Hospitals and Health Systems (Montpelier, VT)
Sponsor: Jeff Tieman,
President and CEO
Project will focus on working with
the VAHHS team to identify health policy issues of relevance to Vermonters and
find easily digestible ways to make them accessible to the public. The
internship will involve interviews with health policy stakeholders, academic
research, and the crafting of one-pagers for a general audience.
Green Mountain Care Board
(Montpelier, VT)
Sponsor: Susan Barrett, Executive
Director
Project will help identify
strategies for rural hospitals to achieve sustainability in a climate of
shrinking population, work force shortages, rising costs and federal and state
payment reform. The intern will conduct research and interview key stakeholders
to assemble successful strategies, tactics and resources deployed in other
rural communities. Final project will be a written set of prioritized
recommendations presented to the GMCB.
House Health Care Committee-Vermont
state legislature (Montpelier, VT)
Sponsor: Rep. Bill Lippert,
Chair
Intern will serve as a research
assistant for the House Health Care Committee, providing background and
analysis for health policy bills as they arise during the legislative session.
Intern will attend committee meetings, floor sessions, and conduct and present
research as requested by committee members.
Senate Health and Welfare
Committee-Vermont state legislature (Montpelier, VT)
Sponsor: Senator Virginia
Lyons, Chair
Intern will serve as a research
assistant for the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, providing background and
analysis for health policy bills as they arise in session. Intern will attend
committee meetings, floor sessions, and conduct and present research as
requested by committee members.
Vermont Program for Quality in
Health Care (Montpelier, VT)
Sponsor: Catherine Fulton,
Executive Director
Intern will work the VPQHC
team on their “Survey and Training for Independent Mental Health Providers”
project- a project that developed through their Zero Suicide Work Group.
The intern would help survey mental health clinicians across the state to
identify both clinicians who have previously been trained in suicide specific
treatment protocols and those clinicians who have not been trained but are
interested in receiving training. The survey would also include an assessment
of potential barriers to engaging in training. The intern would then interpret
the results for a presentation to the Zero Suicide Work Group. The analysis
will help develop a list of clinicians with suicide-specific treatment
training, which can be shared with appropriate referral sources in order to
encourage smooth and appropriate transitions of care for patients experiencing
suicidal thoughts. The results will also inform the next phase of the project
to increase the accessibility of evidenced-based suicide specific training,
such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Suicide Prevention or Collaborative
Assessment and Management of Suicidality.