The Hospital Universitario Rey Juan Carlos —part of the Community of Madrid’s public health network, Sermas— and Universidad CEU San Pablo (CEU USP) signed an agreement last week to develop an educational cooperation training project in the field of clinical internships. This will allow the university’s undergraduate and master’s students to complete practical training placements at the hospital in Móstoles.
The agreement was signed by Marta del Olmo, regional manager of Rey Juan Carlos Hospital, and Rosa Visiedo Claverol, president of CEU USP, at a ceremony described by all as an “enormously positive and inspiring step, both for the institutions and for the students, who are our country’s future healthcare professionals.” Among those in attendance were Drs. Jorge Short, Manuel Durán, and Raquel Barba—the hospital’s manager, director of teaching, and director of the Medical Department, respectively—as well as Tomás Chivato, dean of the School of Medicine.
Specifically, the document establishes that the completion of the training program’s internships (also known as elective rotations) will, for all intents and purposes, be considered an academic activity. Through this, students will gain firsthand experience of the daily work at the Hospital Rey Juan Carlos, which aims to facilitate their integration into a new environment through observation and the adoption of behaviors and attitudes characteristic of professionals.
To this end, the elective rotations for CEU USP students will take the form of either curricular training placements (constituting academic activities that are part of the curriculum for the relevant bachelor’s and/or master’s degree program) or extracurricular placements (those that students may undertake on a voluntary basis during their training period without being part of the corresponding curriculum) equivalent to their degree program.
To achieve this, the elective rotations for CEU USP students will act as curricular training placements. It will constitute academic activities that are part of the curriculum for the bachelor’s and/or master’s degree program or extracurricular placements corresponding to their degree program.
The agreement also specifies that the educational plan, which outlines the details of each external academic placement, must establish the educational objectives and activities to be carried out. Furthermore, it specifies these objectives shall be set by considering the basic, generic, and specific aptitudes students must acquire, while the placement’s content shall be defined to ensure a direct link between the competences and the coursework to be completed.
Regarding the organization of elective rotations, students will be supported by clinical rotation coordinators from hospital departments or units and by a director of studies who will serve as a liaison between the two institutions. These rotations will be carried out under a qualified associate professor’s supervision, who will also be affiliated with Rey Juan Carlos University, and have access to the training programs offered to the students and insights into their implementation.
Finally, a significant value of the project is that participating CEU USP students will complete their clinical rotations under the guidance of Hospital Universitario Rey Juan Carlos’ medical staff. The professionals—many of whom are in the sector’s leading national and international rankings—include leading physicians in their fields possessing the highest professional standards, dedication, and compassion, will guide the CEU USP students participating in the project through their clinical rotations and innovative facilities. These include 18 operating rooms—four of which are destined for major outpatient surgery and are equipped with three Da Vinci robots and one ROSA robot—and the world’s first Philips Areta RT CT scanner. The hospital has also been awarded the European EFQM 5-Star model for quality and excellence, with a score of nearly 600 points, and the Joint Commission International Gold Seal, the world’s most rigorous accreditation for safety and clinical quality in the healthcare sector.