APEx Preceptors

An important tip for a successful Applied Practice Experience (APEx) is setting clear expectations from the start. Expectation-setting enables students to understand what’s expected of them so that they can perform at their best. Having this conversation collaboratively between you, as the preceptor, and the student helps prevent unmet expectations, creates a relationship based on open communication, and helps facilitate any changes in APEx deliverables that may need to happen along the way.

Another important tip for a successful Applied Practice Experience (APEx) is scheduling both one-on-ones with the student you are precepting, as well as inviting them to team or program meetings that are relevant to the project’s deliverables the student will produce. Consistent meetings serve to both relationship-build with the student, as well as course correct any issues as they arise.

If issues arise with the student you are hosting or the Applied Practice Experience, please reach out to Jamie Jones, Director of Applied Learning, at jljones@pdx.edu.

Preceptors provide supervision to MPH students throughout the APEx via guidance on work product development, one-on-one meetings with student interns, and integrating student interns into team meetings.

Upon completion of the APEx, an academic requirement for students is a 20-minute oral presentation about their PE. We ask that preceptors review and approve their slides so that students do not share information the organization does not want public because the presentations are to an open audience.

Preceptors are asked to complete the SPH APEx Survey. This feedback is used to evaluate if we are preparing our students for their APEx, their careers, and if we are sufficiently preparing and supporting you to host students.

An important piece of the APEx is to expand the professional network of students as they embark on their public health careers. This can happen in a number of ways. We recommend inviting students to team meetings and broader organizational meetings, connecting them to relevant employee resource/affinity groups, and as introducing them to colleagues in your network.

The Applied Practice Experience or APEx (formerly known as the Practice Experience and Field Experience, and sometimes called a graduate internship) is the required culminating experience for MPH students to demonstrate public health competencies through production of APEx deliverables. During the APEx, a student works closely with a preceptor to complete deliverables that benefit the preceptor’ s organization while demonstrating skills gained during the MPH degree. Because the MPH is a professional degree (as opposed to academic degrees like the MA or MS), students complete the APEx rather than a thesis.

In the context of the MPH, a preceptor is the person who guides the MPH student through the Applied Practice Experience (APEx). This involves reviewing and approving their learning agreement, providing feedback on their APEx deliverables as they are being developed and at completion, setting expectations for the APEx and providing the student with feedback on those expectations, as well as introducing the student to the team and the broader organization.

Precepting is an excellent professional development activity. Preceptors gain skills in coaching and mentorship; giving and receiving feedback; project planning, scoping, and management; and time management and delegation. They also get to know talented students who will soon be ready to enter the workforce. Organizations hosting APEx students benefit from the deliverables produced by the students, which are tailored to the organization’s needs.

Anywhere public health happens! Professional settings appropriate for the Applied Practice Experience (APEx) may include governmental, non-governmental, non-profit, industrial, for-profit settings, and appropriate university-affiliated settings (such as university health promotion or wellness centers). To be appropriate for APEx activities, university-affiliated settings must be primarily focused on community engagement, typically with external partners. The APEx may also be completed within a student’s own work setting.

The intention of the APEx is for students to apply what they have learned in their MPH coursework to public health workplace settings.

Students are required to complete approximately 160 contact hours (this does not include time they spend on their academic deliverables). We recommend that a student plans to complete their APEx over two terms, which is approximately 8 hours per week. If a student is completing their APEx over one term, they will work approximately 16 hours per week. However, there is flexibility in hours per week and over how many terms a student completed their APEx, which is based on the needs of the site, project, and student.

Yes! When organizations can afford to pay students for the hours associated with their APEx, they may do so as temporary workers or via a stipend. When organizations cannot afford to pay students, other benefits like mileage reimbursement, conference attendance, etc. may be appropriate.

Please reach out to Jamie Jones, Director of Applied Learning, at jljones@pdx.edu if you have questions.

A non-exhaustive list of examples of suitable deliverables includes project plans, grant proposals, training manuals or lesson plans, surveys, memos, videos, podcasts, presentations, spreadsheets, websites, photos (with accompanying explanatory text), data collection plans, interview transcripts, surveys, health communication materials, GIS maps, etc.

Deliverables must demonstrate MPH competencies; should be mutually beneficial to your project, the organization, and the student; and indirectly or directly serve the community.

Due to the graduate-level, public health focus of the APEx, there are types of work and deliverables that are not allowed. Some examples include providing childcare, providing clinical services, providing any 1:1 client-based work, administrative work (internal meeting minutes, scheduling, etc.), solely entering data, solely translating documents, fundraising or development work, or implementing existing curriculum.

If you have any questions about possible projects and deliverables, please contact the Director of Applied Learning, Jamie Jones at jljones@pdx.edu

Paperwork that you will interact with includes the student’s learning agreement and possibly an affiliation agreement or IRB application/addendum.

Students are tasked with drafting their learning agreements. It’s their responsibility to map public health competencies to deliverables, tasks, and activities. Your role in the learning agreement is to co-develop/assign roles and responsibilities to the student; co-develop/assign and approve deliverables; provide overall learning agreement feedback; and sign off on the agreement.

Your organization may need a non-clinical Affiliation Agreement if the intern is unpaid or receives a stipend. Students completing Applied Practice Experiences at OHSU or PSU do not need an affiliation agreement. If you are unsure if you need an Affiliation Agreement, please email Andrew Wyman, APEx Administrator, at wymaa@pdx.edu

The OHSU-PSU School of Public Health offers six Master of Public Health Programs with concentrations in various areas of expertise:

• Biostatistics
• Epidemiology
• Environmental Systems & Human Health
• Health Systems, Management, & Policy
• Health Promotion
• Public Health Practice

If you are interested in learning more, please visit our Masters of Public Health page.

MPH students are required to complete core MPH coursework that cover key concepts in public health, quantitative and qualitative analytic methods, health policy, environmental health, health systems, and communications.

MPH Biostatistics students are recommended to have a broad knowledge of various statistical data analysis methodologies and skill set to perform data analysis, summary results, interpretation of findings, and dissemination because their APExs are more data-analysis oriented. MPH Biostatistics students may be asked to start their PEs after completing a minimal level of biostatistics required courses (2 or 3 classes), and recommend courses, such as Linear Model, Categorical Data Analysis, Design and Analysis of Survey Data, and Applied Longitudinal Data Analysis.

Likewise, MPH Epidemiology students often engage APEx projects focused on data management and analysis. As such, it is recommended students have taken EPI 536: EpiData Analysis & Interpretation before registering for their PEs. Because EPI 536 is the fourth epidemiology methods course in the series (and builds on skills learned throughout EPI 512, 513, and 514 as well as BSTA 511, 512, and 513), it is also recommended that students have completed this course work before beginning their APEx.

The academic assignments MPH students are required to complete for their APEx are 1) a learning agreement (which must be finalized and approved before students may start their APEx); 2) a mid-way progress report; 3) a final report (which includes the APEx deliverables, which should exclude any confidential information); and 4) an oral presentation (which preceptors are invited and encouraged to attend!).

The academic assignments preceptors interact with are the learning agreement and oral presentation slides. We ask that preceptors co-develop and provide feedback on the student’s roles/responsibilities, development/assignment of APEx deliverables, as well as provide overall learning agreement approval. For the oral presentation slides, we ask that preceptors review and approve to prevent the sharing of information the organization does not want shared externally.

Fall term: Last week of Sept
Winter term: Second week of Jan
Spring term: First week of April
Summer term: Second week of June

Please confirm the start dates by visiting the OHSU and PSU Academic Calendar pages:

• OHSU Academic Calendar
• PSU Academic Calendar

NOTE: Most students do their APEx over winter and spring terms, BUT students do their APEx throughout the calendar year.