Psychology Graduate Student Placements at St. Jude

Graduate students from the University of Memphis and University of Mississippi (Oxford) are selected by their home institutions, interviewed then matched with a faculty supervisor based on research interests and skills. Once this match is made, the graduate student is integrated into each faculty member’s research team.

As a result, training experiences are unique to the mentor’s area of research, state of ongoing studies, student skill level and professional goals. Student research practicum activities may include any or all of the following: literature searches/reviews, medical chart abstraction, informed consent, data collection, data entry/verification, ad hoc analyses, preparation of data for presentation and/or publication, contributions toward submitted abstracts, posters and manuscripts commensurate with student skill development, interest, enthusiasm and productivity.

Advanced graduate students from the University of Memphis and the University of Mississippi are selected by their faculty as potential candidates for a 20-hour per week clinical practicum placement. These candidates are interviewed by St. Jude psychologists, and the clinical practicum student is selected based upon previous clinical experiences and fit with St. Jude clinic staff. The practicum student will obtain training in both assessment and intervention with pediatric and young adult patients with cancer, sickle cell disease, other hematologic disorders, and HIV.

As St. Jude is a specialty children’s hospital, research and clinical emphasis is on youth with sickle cell disease, other hematologic conditions, infectious diseases (HIV), cancers (leukemia, lymphoma, brain tumor and CNS neoplasms, other solid tumors, and bone marrow transplantation), pediatric cancer survivorship, rare genetic neurological disorders, and genetic predisposition to cancer.