Practica hours and ratios questions

[psych.meout]

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I'm been on a number of interviews this year where average program practica hours are discussed, but I'm not sure I have a firm grasp on it. One area in particular are the ratios of assessment hours to intervention hours and of face-to-face hours to supervision hours.

Is there are desirable ratio or direction I should be looking for when evaluating a program?

I believe one program cited a ratio of 3:1 for face-to-face:supervision. Is this good? If good, is it realistic?

Are hours accrued through a program's in-house clinic good? How are the evaluated compared to external practica?

What should I be looking for if I want to focus on neuropsych research and assessment?

Does one include peer mentoring/supervision of practica for students earlier in the program as part of supervision hours? What about supervising more junior gad students and/or undergrads in a lab?

What should I be looking for in the qualitative aspects of the practica?
Diversity in populations and/or problems/complaints?
Diversity in practica setting, e.g. inpatient vs. outpatient, hospital vs. private practice?
Diversity in the type, purpose, etc. of assessments and evaluations?
Diversity in the type of interventions taught and practiced?

Are APA internship and fellowship sites, especially for neuropsych, looking for something/some ratios in particular? Are there are also sheer absolute numbers of hours they would want?

 

[smalltownpsych]

Whew! That's a lot of questions. If you are headed for neuro then you would probably want sites that emphasize assessment. My program had super solid neuro practicums at several local university hospitals with nationally recognized names. My personal opinion is that you don't want to spend too much time at the in house clinic and get as much of a diverse experience with different settings and populations as you can.