Name of Student:  Zain Ahmad

Degree Subject:  Medicine BMBS

Job Title: PR & Comms Intern

Company Name:  Oxford Heartbeat

Type of Internship: Access to Internships (A2I) 

What were your key duties and responsibilities during your internship?

– producing written material for company website, including blogs, and articles
– interviewed staff for a “Day in the Life” series on the website
– produced long form social media posts for LinkedIn and Twitter
– conducted market research for medical devices in the US and EU

What was your biggest achievement on your internship?

I produced a market research report on stenting across the UK and US markets

Were there any challenges and how did you overcome these?

Challenge was adapting to a non-healthcare environment and developing my commercial understanding

Skills Learnt: 

• Teamwork and Collaboration
• Communication
• Focus on Goals and Outcomes

Attributes Developed:

• Commercial Awareness
• Confidence
• Initiative
• Professionalism

Your message to other students considering a similar job role, organisation or sector?

Working for Oxford Heartbeat was an amazing experience and I am grateful that I was able to work with such a great start-up team. I was impressed at how qualified the staff were, and for me this created lots of opportunities to learn. I’d be speaking to the business development manager with a Biomedical PhD background in one moment, and then talk to a developer with a PhD in Machine Learning!

I learnt a lot about commercialising Medical Device products in the NHS, and this is a perspective I would not have gained in my normal degree programme. I’d encourage anyone interested in healthcare and tech to pursue a start-up internship. My only complaint was that I could only work for one month!