ABOUT THE INTERNSHIP PROGRAM
The Boston Healing Landscape Project Internship Program is a competitive program designed to provide opportunities for well-qualified undergraduate and graduate students to study the cultural, religious, and medical diversity of Boston. Students receive volunteer internship or practicum experience, and, in some cases, academic credit, while participating in projects that provide grounding in qualitative research methodology and the application of learned principles to real-world settings.
Interns engage in original research designed to generate a variety of cross-cultural curricular and training resources intended for healthcare professionals, scholars, and the general public and made available through our website. Internship projects are individually assigned and customized by BHLP staff to make best use of the student’s personal abilities and previous academic experience, while allowing them to develop the knowledge and skills that help pave the way to graduate study or careers in the field. Upon completion, the intern receives acknowledgement and online publication credit for their work.
A wide range of internship projects are offered. The Multicultural Country Index is one such example. It is a collection of online training modules for different countries, each providing links to the best resources addressing topics related to that country. Beginning with a general overview of social customs, language, religion and immigrant experiences, the headings become more specifically related to health, looking at physical and mental health issues, the use of complementary and alternative medicine, existing health care systems in that country, and cultural barriers to care. Country selection is based on Boston Medical Center patient demographics. We examine such things as the frequency of language services provided by BMC’s Office of Interpreter Services, or the countries of origin of patients in the Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights. Feedback from doctors and nurses helps keep us informed about the patient groups they see most often and about which they need the most cultural information.
Resources developed by the BHLP staff and interns have been used to promote cultural compentence awareness and as supplemental references for:
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