Casey Baksa | Oct. 13, 2008
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| Photo by Jessica Keys |
| Jann Ingmire, JAMA’s media relations director, fielded questions after her talk to J429. |
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Thursday, Ingmire, media relations director for the Journal of the American Medical Association, used her experience and lessons learned as a teaching tool for students in Ralph Winslow Visiting Professor Jim Bright’s J429 Public Relations Campaigns class.
She first talked about handling surprises.
“The great thing about my job is that you never know what’s going to happen on a given day,” she said. “You never know what to expect.”
As media relations director, Ingmire serves as JAMA’s main representative to the media, dealing with national news publications such as The Washington Post and The New York Times, as well as national television stations and international media outlets. She used those experiences as she talked to the class and answered questions.
Ingmire encouraged the group of 20 students to maintain positive professional relationships, to be organized and remain flexible. This class of students has a real-world reason to heed Ingmire’s advice as they are working in teams to develop publicity campaign ideas for the school’s 100th anniversary in 2011.
Ingmire focused her talk on real world advice. She discussed her outlook on working as a professional communicator. Although she often works with doctors who possess a medical knowledge far greater than her own, her job is to translate that information to something her audience easily can understand.
“A lot of the time, I don’t know what specifically a doctor may be speaking about, but it doesn’t bother me,” she said. “I’m doing my job by allowing them to communicate more effectively.”
While visiting, Ingmire also spoke to associate professor Holly Stocking‘s class and to lecturer Beth Wood‘s J321 Principles of Public Relations class.
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