Working in an in-house hospital PR department is definitely exciting! My work placement is at a prominent public hospital in Perth, Western Australia (WA). The public relations department has 3 full-time staff members, a manager, a media coordinator and a public relations officer.
The manager of the department looks after the corporate issues, such as sitting on committees, advising on communication strategies and external stakeholder relations.
The media coordinator has the specific job of, that’s right, looking after the media! There are constantly reporters and camera crews on site wanting the latest update on a patient’s condition. This exciting role involves liaising with journalists, organising interviews with patients and writing media releases.
The public relations officer looks after internal communications for the hospital’s 6000 staff members! All who are extremely busy and many who do not even have email. Can you imagine the job of trying to get a message across to this many people?
Due to the amount of staff members and the pressure of a hospital environment, writing hospital newsletters and communications requires you to write simple, easy and straight to the point (which has been difficult for me because I like writing creatively!).
The work I have done so far includes writing stories for the internal newsletter, re-writing and updating hospital brochures and the best so far which was interviewing a kidney donation patient for an article.
I look forward to updating you again soon on the exciting things happening in healthcare!
1 comment:
WOW! Only three full-time staff!?
That's incedible given the amount of publicity hospitals are faced with on an ongoing basis as well as the amount of staff they have to communicate with, as you said!
Luckily for you that means a lot of hands on experience and being involved more so with the actually public relations field.
Good luck!
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