Hi everyone!
I am in my final semester of my Management and Public Relations degree at Curtin University and I am currently in my sixth week of my PR internship at St John of God Murdoch Hospital (SJOGMH). This blog post is concentrating on everything I have done from the first till the third week of my internship and boy have I learnt a lot in a short period of time.
The first challenge I faced during this unit started way before I took my first steps into the PR and Community Relations department of SJOGMH, and that was finding a placement. I'm not going to lie, finding a placement wasn't my cup of tea. The idea of cold-calling an organisation in the hopes of scoring a twenty day internship terrified me and three weeks until the start of semester I knew I had to get my butt into gear and just do it!
After a week of procrastination and researching various organisations I finally made the call to SJOG and I'm glad I did, as they said I could definitely do a placement in their PR and Marketing team at their Murdoch campus on the days I was free (I work 30 hours already). In all honesty the last six weeks have flown by and I don't think I could have selected a better organisation to intern for.
For those who don't know, SJOG hospitals are private, non-profit and located throughout Australia and New Zealand. SJOG appealed to me as an organization as they were non-profit and I always wanted a career in health care.
But enough about that and let's get down to how my first three weeks went.
The first week of my internship was the sink or swim period, and to say I was thrown into the deep end would be an understatement. My first day was centered on looking at all their publications, social media, community relations and events archives so I would have a feel for what the PR and Community Relations team does at SJOGMH. Then on the second day my first assignment was to interview two caregivers; a doctor and the Arts Program manager, and write up two separate pieces by the following week to be published in the SJOGMH quarterly newsletter "The Murdoch Messenger"
My boss, Roshan, asked me if I was comfortable jumping straight into the interviews solo and I jumped at the opportunity to shine. So, armed with a trusty tape recorder in my hand I set off to prove I could conduct a successful interview (I mean we all did them in PR 250 Media right?) and come up with a story with an angle that the public would be interested in, boy did that backfire at first.
I went into the first interview completely unprepared and it took only three minutes. I knew as soon as I was walking back I had screwed up by not preparing my questions beforehand. We were taught during PR 250 Media that preparation is the key when it comes to interviews, both as an interviewer and as an interviewee. I was not making that mistake again!
Heading into my second interview I still had my trusty tape recorder, but I was also armed with a sheet of questions that I had prepared which would hopefully start the ball rolling, and it did. I was more confident and I found I was able to probe deeper and get more relevant answers. Seems that in this instance what I had learnt at uni had paid off going into my internship.
The second week consisted of more interviews with more people, and more pieces to boot! Again, preparation was the key to my success and the key to being relaxed and confident. Up until this point I had received really positive feedback from Roshan on my writing though it did require editing before submission. The confidence boost I received from this feedback was exactly what I needed as I remember feeling extremely nervous after I had sent off my first piece to Roshan for approval in case it wasn't up to the standard of a university graduate.
One thing I have realised is I am now learning how to push out pieces and media releases in less than two hours, sometimes even in less than an hour. This is a huge turnaround from when I was at uni and writing up media releases for assignments would take me days. Roshan told me "limits and caveats breed creativity and force you to rely on your instincts" and I am starting to see how true this is.
My third week was not as hectic and I spent most of my time researching the use of social media in health care. SJOGMH has a social media plan and is active on Facebook and Twitter but want to better utilise various social media outlets to boost their profile as the leading private hospital in Western Australia. Roshan stressed to me that social media is not just about pushing information out, but making it relevant to the target audience and stakeholders. They want their stakeholders to engage with them as a brand and this requires using various channels more effectively.
So as you can see, my first three weeks were full on sink or swim moments but I am happy to say I have loved every moment of it so far, and I'll keep you posted on what is happening in the next few weeks.
(If you want to see some of my work, follow this link http://www.sjog.org.au/pdf/Murdoch_MM%20Autumn_2013_FINAL.pdf. I wrote the 'Caregiver of the Year' piece on page 3 and co-wrote 'The Art of Good Health' on page 4.
Until next time!
