Internships across disciplines:
How do we compare?
Michael Odio
@mikeodio odioml@uc.edu
Assistant Professor, Sport Administration
University of Cincinnati
Origin of internships
Medical internships
Accrediting Bodies (APA)
Engineering co-op
Similar internship arrangements
etymology
intern (n.) 1879, American English,
"one working under supervision as
part of professional training,"
especially "doctor in training in a
hospital,"
from French interne "assistant
doctor," literally "resident within a
school,"
from Middle French interne
"internal"
Medical Internships
Late 1800’s
Exclusionary, prestigious, unstandardized
1905
AMA establishes Council on Medical Education
1920’s
# of medical students completing internships 75-90%
1975
Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education
drops term “internship”
Higher
Education
Federal/
congressional
Local gov
Rise in medical
internships
Early history of Medical Internships:
Familiar “symptoms”
Elitism
“A good internship provided the entry into the medical professions of different cities.
Frequently, interns were appointed through personal connections, reinforcing the
elitist pattern and tying house staff jobs to acceptance in private practice.”
“…[Made] it more difficult for outsiders, including minority groups, to enter
the system at any level. Women physicians had a particularly hard time in a city
like Boston, which had a close-knit set of institutional arrangements whose
effect was to limit desirable positions to men.”
Early history of Medical Internships:
Familiar “symptoms”
Supervision
Control
“…but unfortunately the internship was too often unsupervised. In some
hospitals the whole house staff changed each year; there was little or no medical
school supervision.”
“Yet while its function in medical education remained undecided, the internship
was being institutionalized as a hospital responsibility…As part of medical
education, the internship should have been under the guidance of medical schools;
but it was not. Hospitals had become an important power block in the organization
of graduate medical education.”
1991 survey of 2nd year medical residents
Type of mistreatment
At least once
3+ times
Belittle or humiliate
86.4
53.1
Take credit for your work
50.1
21.4
Slap, push, kick or hit
38.5
12.9
Sexual harassment
30.4
15.9
Threaten reputation or career
31.6
11.9
Racial and/or ethnic discrimination
25.4
12.0
2002 study of 14 medical schools
Accrediting Bodies
Internship site criteria:
12-24 months
Sufficient number and variability of served population
Nondiscriminatory policies and operating conditions
Site has formal written policies for intern selection policies and
procedures, requirements, feedback, advisement, retention and
termination, grievance etc.
Site supervisor standards and others
Engineering (and business) Co-op model
Paid full-time experiences
Built into curriculum
University administered
Politics
“Business” Internships
Fashion
Journalism
Sport Management Internships
Eagleman & McNary (2010)
Compensation/wage theft issue is not unique
Sites/organizations have the power (except APA)
Mostly every program for itself
Accrediting body is limited, not usually limiting
What should we take away?
Nothing should be considered sacred: Question all assumptions
We must protect those who are vulnerable
There is a problem of definition
Consistency is elusive, maybe illusive
Can we get it? Do we want it?
Internships across disciplines:
How do we compare?
Michael Odio
@mikeodio odioml@uc.edu
Assistant Professor, Sport Administration
University of Cincinnati
Sources
Intern definition
Daugherty, Baldwin, & Rowley (1998). Learning, Satisfaction, and Mistreatment During
Medical Internship A National Survey of Working Conditions
Stevens (1973). Graduate Medical Education: A Continuing History
APA
UC Co-op ProPEL