Summer 2015 Internship Blog: May 2015

As tomorrow starts the fourth week of my summer internship, I decided it’s about time to update on the first three weeks.

I’ve been working at Penn Highlands Clearfield as the public relations and marketing intern. PHC is the hospital in my hometown. Throughout my first three weeks I was kept extremely busy to say the least. Here’s a little background info on Penn Highlands Healthcare:

“By combining the best services from Brookville Hospital, Clearfield Hospital, DuBois Regional Medical Center and Elk Regional Health Center, Penn Highlands strives to provide exceptional quality, safety and service. These facilities are now known as Penn Highlands Brookville, Penn Highlands Clearfield, Penn Highlands DuBois and Penn Highlands Elk.

Each facility is the largest employer in its hometown and is rooted deeply in the both the popular and economic culture of their communities. The vision is to be an integrated health care delivery system that provides premier care with a personal touch, no matter where one lives in the region.”

My very first day at PHC I was thrown right in to helping set up for the annual health expo that was happening the next day. I helped set up tables and help local vendors set up. The next day I greeted people from the community as they came in the door. I also made sure they signed up for our door prize (a Sheetz card), and received a reusable PHC bag and pen.

By Wednesday of that first week, I was traveling 30 minutes with my mentor, Amy Duke, the marketing director of PHC, to Penn Highlands DuBois where we attended a marketing meeting. I really enjoyed seeing how the meeting was run and just listening in on everything that goes into a yearly marketing plan. Once we returned to PHC, Amy and I went to the St. Charles Café, a local restaurant. We helped the director of HR set up for the employee recognition dinner and then we also attended the dinner later that night.

Thursday, I had the opportunity to meet with Brian from Penn Highlands DuBois. Brian is in charge of taking new physicians around to the various Penn Highland locations and introduces them to the doctors as well as talk about the new services the physician will offer. I was fortunate enough to go around the hospital as well as two other Penn Highland buildings with Brian to introduce Dr. Raju.

My second week was definitely another busy one. The reason that I started my internship the week after finals ended was because May is such a busy month for the hospital with all of the special events that are held and Amy wanted me to be a part of as many events as possible.

During my second week, I wrote a news release for the employee recognition dinner, started the news release for the EMT dinner that would be happening that week, and I also began writing an article on summer safety. All of the articles I write are submitted to The Progress Newspaper and some are also submitted to gantdaily.com.

There was a ‘lunch and learn’ program that was held at The Strawberry Tree, a quaint little restaurant and tea house that is located in Curwensville. During this program Dr. Mendez, a family physician from the PH Family Practice in Curwensville provided an opportunity for attendees to get answers to questions about cancer concerns for women. I helped to set up for this event and make sure everything ran smoothly as well as collected tickets and drew a winner for the door prize that was given away.

Wednesday was the annual EMS dinner where Penn Highlands honors Ems’s from the surrounding communities and thanks them for their service. I helped to set up for this event, and then made sure all of the attendees signed in as they came in to assure that they received credit for the event. Not only does this event honor the attendees, it provides them continuing education credits, so it was important that everyone signed in to receive credit. At the end of the event I also helped to draw names and pass out several door prizes.

Senator Wozniak visited PHC on Thursday. Amy, Gary Macioce, hospital president and I, took Senator Wozniak on a tour of the facility. It was exciting getting to interact with a state representative at a local level. Senator Wozniak was a very down to earth person, and at one point I even got to show him how to use his iPhone calendar so he knew what appointments he had later in the day. Thursday was also the Courtyard Cookout, when the hospital provides lunch to all of its employees. After Senator Wozniak left, alongside hospital administration, I helped served food to employees.

My third week was definitely not as busy as the first two. I attended a mandatory hospital orientation where I learned about the hospital and their policies. I also finished and submitted my EMS news release and summer safety article to The Progress.

Penn Highlands is opening a new location in October so I worked on creating a brochure draft for the location. Once my draft is finished, I will sit down with the hospital’s graphic designer who will create the final draft. I was already fortunate enough to work with the graphic designer once already. I submitted information to have a flyer created for our Clearfield Pediatric Center and the designer created it.

There was a group of 15 pre-school students who came to the hospital on Wednesday and I took them on a tour of the laboratory, the x-ray department, and the emergency department. It was rewarding to take the kids around and see how excited they were learning about what happens in the hospital. Their favorite part was seeing x-rays of broken bones and learning how the x-ray machine works.

To finish my third week, I helped at the Teddy Bear Clinic. The local elementary school was having a Title 1 parent involvement night and various organizations from the community were invited to participate. I organized the clinic with the pediatric center and had two physicians and two nurses attend. Students brought their favorite stuffed animal, or doll and the physicians and nurses took the ‘patient’ through a check-up so that the students aren’t afraid to go to the doctor’s office.

I'm glad Amy threw me right in doing PR work. I didn't realize how much I've actually learned until I started interning. After I write a news release or article, Amy and I sit down and she proofs my article. It's reward to know that she only makes minor AP format changes to my article. Several times Amy has even said how impressed she is with the knowledge of PR that I've come in with. She expected to sit and have to teach me how to write news releases, instead of just giving me information and me writing the release on my own.

So far, I’ve loved every minute of my internship and I am so excited to see what the next two months have in store for me. In the short three weeks that I’ve interned, it has defiantly showed me that I have a strong passion for public relations and marketing. It makes me extremely excited to see what the real world has to offer after I graduate next year.

EMS News Release - The Progress doesn't include pictures in the online format.