Vancouver Coastal Health is committed to supporting healthy lives in healthy community with our partners through care, education and research. Partners include students and instructors from educational institutions. We are very proud to host students for their practicum placements and collaborate with educational institutions, faculty, and instructors to ensure students have opportunities to consolidate to their learning. We welcome students energy, perspective and commitment to learning.
If you have any questions please email
placements@vch.ca.
For the latest information about COVID-19, please refer to the VCH public COVID-19 webpage and the recommendations to post-secondary institutions posted under "Public health orders and letters" – "Letters to community partners".
For the provincial guidelines around student placements in health care during COVID-19, please check the BCCDC page.
August 5 – BCCDC together with the Ministry of Health have published the new Student Practice Guidelines for health care settings during COVID-19. The document provides guidance to schools and health authorities around planning and managing practice education for all health-care disciplines in BC.
June 15, 2020 - VCH has developed a 
quick guide to cover new additional practicum requirements for students returning to our facilities. Please note that our regular requirements such as SPECO remain in place.
June 12, 2020 - Vancouver Coastal Health has implemented a new enhanced screening process for students and instructors going to long term care sites. More info on the Allied Health or Nursing Students pages.
June 8, 2020 – VCH has launched a new education curriculum which is updated regularly to reflect best-practice updates regarding COVID-19. Students completing their practicum at VCH facilities are required to complete it prior to their start date, in addition to other requirements outlined in SPECO.
Educational institutions should request placements through the national web enabled data base, Health Sciences Placement Network (HSPnet). This is the preferred method of for placement application so the process is streamlined and sites/programs consider requests from one source. Students who wish to request placements at VCH are required to have a school email address.
We ask our partner institutions and their students not to contact our sites directly with placement requests. All requests are to be submitted through HSPnet. If you are an institution inquiring about a potential partnership with our health authority, please contact us at placements@vch.ca.
Once the agreement is signed, the educational institution may proceed with entering the placement in HSPnet and ensuring the student completes all the necessary training and requirements outlined on this website. Students are to refer to the Student Practice Education Core Orientation (SPECO) checklist for the complete list of pre-placement requirements.
To ensure our sites have enough time to consider placement requests and IT services can timely arrange for an account and system access, we follow a set timeline for request submission and processing for the majority of disciplines. Please note the following deadlines to enter requests into HSPnet for each term:
Fall Term (September-December) - January 15
Winter (January-April) - March 15
Spring/Summer (May-August) - September 15
NEW! We also offer the following supplementary step-by-step worksheets available for both Placing Coordinators and Students to help prepare for the upcoming practicum and ensure all VCH requirements are complete. Please note that these worksheets are for your reference only and do not need to be submitted.
We do not receive medical student placement requests directly. All requests must go through the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Vancouver Coastal Health may be able to accommodate certain observation experiences or Supervised Practice Experiences in some program areas. Observations of patient care areas are intended for qualified health care professionals or students who are seeking professional development opportunities or employment. Regretfully, we are not able to accommodate observations as prerequisites for school programs. Individuals will be required to have immunizations up to date and a current criminal record check. Individuals may be responsible for having adequate insurance and completing the VCH Privacy and Confidentiality Undertaking for Student Placement is mandatory. Please email
placements@vch.ca for details.
Faculty, students and staff preceptors are encouraged to complete an evaluation following their clinical placement. This information is shared with the placement area and helps us to improve the quality of the educational experience for all parties involved. Please take the time to complete your practice experience evaluation: