NF Memorial Medical Center - Public Relations

Fall 2016

Interning in the Public Relations & Communications Department at Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center has been an extremely rewarding experience. I worked under two individuals and they have taught me many things, allowing me to gain an understanding of nearly everything involved in both of their positions.

I spent the first few weeks becoming accustomed to everything that was going on in and around the hospital. Memorial is especially involved in the community surrounding the hospital as well as throughout Niagara County. In these first couple of weeks I performed duties that involved calling many physician offices around Western New York to obtain fax numbers. These numbers allowed me to create mailing lists for future flyers and events for numerous hospital programs including the Bariatric Weight Loss Fashion Show which was held at Antonio’s Banquet Hall in late October. Calling countless numbers of physician offices aided in the improvement of my communication skills and gave me a ton of experience in Microsoft Excel.

In the weeks following, I spent nearly all of my time working with Memorial’s Marketing Director, assisting in the creating of a new and unique informational packet for future and incoming doctors at the hospital. The packet includes a brochure explaining the Hospital’s important services. It also contains a brief history of Memorial, local restaurant discount coupons, past press releases, and a letter from the President & CEO. Creating this packet afforded me the opportunity to learn about nearly all of the services at Memorial as well as its past. It also gave me the opportunity to see all of the things that the hospital does to please incoming physicians.

One program that I have become exceptionally accustomed to using is “Practis Events Manager.” This program is used by the hospital to create and update all events in which Memorial is involved. I was also involved with the Buffalo News, doing the same type of thing. I would update them on many of the important events taking place at Memorial.

Creating a monthly newsletter for the hospital has become one of the main duties of my internship. The newsletter, “Keeping up with NFMMC,” recognizes a number of important things that occur at Memorial during each month. It also acknowledges the accomplishments of many of Memorial’s employees while also providing direction to those seeking additional information about the Medical Center. After creating the newsletter i distribute it throughout all of the departments and waiting rooms in Memorial, this gives me the opportunity to continually familiarize myself with many of the people at programs at Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center.

There was one particular occasion here that I found extremely important in my growth and learning experience. This was when one of the reporters from the Buffalo News came in to gather information for a future story about a special event that one of Memorial’s programs was holding. The news reporter was contacted and agreed to come in because I had brought the events of this program to the attention of my boss here and we worked to write up a proposal for submission and the reporter later agreed to write the article. I discovered the events of this hospital program while I was distributing the monthly newsletter throughout Memorial. The events taking place felt to me like something that needed recognition, which it soon got. When the reporter came to gather information, my boss and I greeted him, answered any questions that he had, and listened as he asked many questions to patients and employees involved in the events of this program. This experience allowed me to gain a ton of knowledge in regards to news reporting, the questions to ask and things to look for when crafting particular stories.

The position as Public Relations & Communications director has many benefits as well as a few drawbacks. Some of these benefits include the variety involved. By this I mean that new events and other related things arise very often, repetitiveness, which can make something extremely boring, isn’t really in play with this type of job. A drawback of this job would be all of the weight carried with such an important position. There is a lot of pressure of this position to properly keep people up-to-date. Some people may see the added expectation/pressure as a positive of this position, I acknowledge this and agree that pressure can be good but only to a certain point. I could picture myself in this type of position as a career for a few reasons, one being that I have enjoyed my time and everything that I’ve learned about the work involved in such a position. Another reason is that this position allows for the involvement in many different functions and events throughout the hospital. This position in one where you must be prepared for all types of occurrences, there is always something new to keep people around the community informed about.

For a student who could be considering this internship in the future I would tell them a few things. One being that they must be ready for a variety of challenges, this internship didn’t involve just simply sitting at a desk all day and typing up press releases and other related documents. This is more of a hands on position. The people that you work under in the Public Relations & Communications Department at Memorial are especially involved in many hospital programs and they provide a countless number of learning experiences for their interns.