CPMC Child Life Internship Program

The Child Life Program at Sutter Health CPMC provides services to our inpatient Pediatric unit and our Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), Pediatric Emergency Department (ED), Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), outpatient radiology, and outpatient surgery. We see patients ages 0-21, hospitalized for both acute and chronic illnesses.

About the Program

At CPMC, children of all ages receive heartfelt, expert pediatric care. Our doctors work side-by-side with physicians from Stanford Children’s Health to provide care in more than 25 pediatric specialty areas to help your child stay healthy. Our subspecialties include allergy and immunology, cardiology, endocrinology, gastroenterology, general surgery, hematology/oncology, infectious disease, neonatology, neurology, neurosurgery, orthopedics, plastic surgery, microvascular surgery, and pulmonology.

At CPMC our child life team includes 14 Certified Child Life Specialists, a child life program supervisor, three board certified Music Therapists, and our Canine Companion facility dog program. We are located at the Van Ness Campus in San Francisco.

Program Details

The child life internship is a demanding, full-time, unpaid 16-week internship, which provides 600+ hours of clinical experience, with continual educational opportunities. We offer rotations in the following areas: inpatient general pediatrics/PICU, NICU, ED and Outpatient surgery and radiology. During the last weeks of the internship, the intern may follow a small caseload, functioning as a child life specialist with close supervision. In addition to the clinical experience, the internship includes an extensive curriculum, based on the Association of Child Life Professionals “Clinical Internship Curriculum”, with weekly topics, assignments, role plays, projects, and presentations.

Intern hours vary throughout the internship, with some evening, early morning and weekend hours. We highly recommend that the intern focus exclusively on the internship and not carry an outside workload at the same time. We find that the internship is a very intensive experience that requires full attention and energy throughout the 16 weeks.

Each intern is supervised by the child life supervisor/internship coordinator, as well as a Certified Child Life Specialist who provides guidance during each rotation. Sutter CPMC child life staff, with our various backgrounds, experience and expertise, are all here to support interns through the internship experience.

We offer internships in the winter/spring and fall, and abide by ACLP application deadlines. We accept both affiliated and non-affiliated interns.

How to Apply

We are not accepting any applications at this time. Please check back for more updates.