Cardiac Rehabilitation Internship

When a student completes any of his degrees in the field of cardiac rehabilitation e.g. M.Sc in cardiac rehabilitation, Certificate diploma in cardiac rehabilitation, short term course in cardiac rehabilitation, nursing course in cardiac rehabilitation; he has to go through the most important part of the course structure called on duty training. This training is called as "internship". Internship is a mandatory step in every course i.e. without the training, a student cannot be given his related degree or certificate even though he has completed his studding. The institute, which absorbs the student as intern, assigns him specific work, gives him practical experience, trains well and also pays some stipend to him. The intern can work at the special cardiac rehabilitation centers or rehabilitation centers of major hospitals.

While the student does the internship, he sees the practical aspects of the study he has done till date. He gets to know the difference between knowledge and practical implementation. By doing internship, the student gets the exposure to the following procedures:

• Participating in all the aspects of cardiac patient care
• Nutrition counseling, stress management and patient education
• The exercise related issues like leadership, help and exercise prescription
• Obtaining practical experience of reading ECG machines
• Observing cardiac procedures like echocardiography, cardiac catheterization, imaging and nuclear stress testing
• Reviewing and testing on cardiovascular pharmacology
• Not panicking in emergency situation
• Reviewing and testing the patient's sugar level using machines
• Boosting the moral of the patient if required
• Reading the patient's and his heart's health using different techniques and tests
• Acquiring skills and accumulating the Practical Clinical Hours necessary for qualifying for the ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine) certification
• Acquiring skills for performing cardiopulmonary exercise testing

Also some giant rehabilitation centers offer special internship courses in the following aspects related to the cardiac rehabilitation:

• Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation
• Assessment of risk factor reduction and education
• Nutritional Education
• Stress and Relaxation education
• Patient care case management (PCCM)
• Body composition testing (Skin fold technique, BOD, POD)
• Exercise Prescription Consultation
• Functional Assessments
• ECG (Electrocardiogram) Analysis
• Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing
• Hydrotherapy
• Pulmonary Function Testing (PFT)
• Endothelial Peripheral Arterial Tomography (EPAT)

An internship also gives a good administrative experience to the students. They are educated in the related aspects like appropriate paperwork to be maintained for each step, informing the administrative team about all the expenditures, maintaining the exact records of the patient tests etc. After gaining experience from the internship, the students are offered degree or certificate of the course for which they have to opt for.

After the practical experience in cardiac rehabilitation internship, a student matures as a trained professional in the field of cardiac rehabilitation.