Internships:
 A Taste of the Working World

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Sarah Donnell

 Last year, while many communications majors were looking for public relations internships at major businesses, Sarah Donnell was headed for the hospital.  She spent last summer interning in the Community Relations Department at Children’s Mercy Hospitals & Clinics in Kansas City.  By combining two of her interests, public relations and health care, Sarah was able to find the perfect internship and discover what she wants to do after she graduates this year. 

 Though a hospital may seem like an unlikely place for someone looking for a public relations internship, it turned out to be perfect for Sarah.  Her mother works in the health care field, so Sarah grew up learning about how hospitals worked and had always had an interest in the field.  In addition, she couldn’t have picked a better time to look for an internship at a hospital.  Issues that surround health care today are leading to a huge growth in public relations for hospitals.  There is more competition for patients, so hospitals are focusing more on how they are viewed by the public.  Therefore, many hospital public relations departments are growing, including the department at Children’s Mercy Hospitals & Clinics.

 Knowing that she wanted to combine her love for writing and her interest in health care, Sarah was able to start early in her internship search.  She began by searching the Internet for ideas, and was the most successful at the Public Relations Society of America website.  There she used the internship database to narrow down her search to public relations jobs in Kansas City and then contacted several of those employers in early December.  Because many employers do not make their decision until late January or February, Sarah continued corresponding with her potential employers until she landed an interview and finally got a job at the hospital.

 Sarah had a variety of responsibilities at the children’s hospital.  Her main responsibility was writing for three of the hospital’s publications.  These publications were each aimed at a different audience so she had to quickly learn how to communicate to different groups of people.  For example, one of these publications, Physicians Update, was aimed at the physicians.  This required more technical writing and was more scientific than the other publication, Safe and Sound, which was directed at parents and allowed her to be more creative with her writing.  This also gave her the opportunity to work with different people from the various departments of the hospital.  “A hospital is like a city within a city…Just getting to communicate at all levels was a wonderful experience.”  Sarah also indexed one of the older publications, establishing a database that allowed past articles to be more accessible to doctors. 

She also gained a lot of media relations experience.  Whenever there was a newsworthy story involving the hospital, the media would try to get as much information as possible from the hospital.  This was Sarah’s first experience with media relations: “That was one experience that was very exciting, especially with learning how to handle things on the spot.  It can get confusing when you’re helping the media outlets to a certain extent but also trying to stay within the regulations of the hospital.” 

Sarah found her job challenging because it was her first professional experience and she had never done anything like it before.  At first the professional atmosphere was intimidating, especially when approaching doctors, since they were the experts and she didn’t have a background in science.  “Eventually, I was able to go talk to them and feel comfortable with the skills I was learning, and I was able to communicate with them closer to their level.”

 For her, the best part was discovering what she wants to do after graduation.  One of her aspirations is to one day become the Vice President of Public Relations at a hospital.  “I really liked how they interacted with the public.  There’s so much that they did with the city, like planning events for fundraisers that deal with the whole community.  It was nice to see that a hospital can go out into the community and do good things and not always be such a sad place.” 

 For others who are looking for internships, Sarah advised that you start looking early.  Use all outlets you can think of and don’t narrow down your choices.  It’s important to look at a broad range of choices so that you don’t wind up missing something you may love.  “There are so many opportunities out there that you don’t learn about in the classroom. There are people in hospitals and museums that do these kinds of things that interest communications majors.  It hasn’t been made that clear to us because it hasn’t been that popular in the past.”

 Though she did not get paid, the experience was worth it.  “I honestly enjoyed every day I walked in that door.  It was a wonderful atmosphere…you could tell their focus was on helping me learn and that I wasn’t just free help.  I would ask them questions and they would make sure I understood everything.  I think at some internships, you really get stuck with them piling a lot of busy work on you, but the supervisors at the hospital really made sure I was learning along the way.”    It also helped to raise her expectations of where she wants to work: “I know there are places out there that produce wonderful publications where I fit in and can contribute…This has definitely given me a lot of direction and the confidence I need to move forward.”

 You can visit the Public Relations Society of America website at:

http://www.prsa.org/