Education & History
St. Luke’s Summer Internship Program Provides a Pipeline
As spring arrives, St. Luke's University Health Network is gearing up for a summer internship program that is expanding its reach and helping to recruit the next generation of talent for the Network.
Spring is here, and as manager of St. Luke’s Career Navigation, Andrea Reger is already preparing for summer. Andrea has helped to expand the Network’s summer internship program, increasing the number of non-clinical paid internships and participating departments.
“Internships are a pipeline of talent into the Network,” she said. “Often, interns come back as full-time employees or serve as brand ambassadors on their campuses, talking about their positive experience at St. Luke’s.”
The program is one of many initiatives to recruit and retain talented and engaged employees for St. Luke’s.
In 2024, interns worked in many departments, including HR, IT, Learning and Development, Community Health, Marketing, and Materials Management. Some interns supported administrative projects in clinical departments, such as Behavioral Health and Outpatient Rehabilitation.
Andrea recruits from colleges nationwide and uses Handshake, an online career management tool, to market internships. She attends career fairs and visits local universities to spread the word, which has resulted in a more competitive internship program.
Sadie Kennedy, a senior majoring in film and TV at Boston University, worked on St. Luke’s Media Production Services team. Considering a career in film editing, she welcomed the opportunity to edit digital footage and create videos used in social media posts and on St. Luke’s website, including the Find a Doctor videos. She will add the videos to her portfolio, showing her capabilities.
“I’m much more comfortable making the video on my own due to the experience I gained at St. Luke’s,” she said. “My internship has taught me how to set up lighting, use the camera, and maintain on-set etiquette. It was a very good experience.”
Rory O’Connor, a Lehigh University Business Information Systems senior, worked in the Supply Chain Department on Project Nexus, a PAR (periodic automation replenishment) inventory management initiative to optimize items kept in stock.
“We are trying to right size our PARs, and I was in charge of creating a standardized process at each campus,” he said. “My project isn’t finished yet, but we are expecting $100,000 of savings or more.”
In addition to working in their departments, interns receive skills-building workshops, networking events, lunch-and-learn sessions, one-to-one career coaching, and social activities.
Andrea believes that when interns get a chance to experience St. Luke’s culture, they will also choose to stay and continue their careers in the Network. “Internships are a powerful tool to attract the next generation of health care professionals,” Andrea said.
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