This is a guest post by Constance Chasteen, former intern at Summersville Regional Medical Center. She is a computer information systems student at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in Wabash Valley, Ind.
For my internship, I was asked to either revamp or rebuild Summersville Regional Medical Centerâs Intranet site. Since their existing Intranet was only partially completed using Microsoft FrontPage 2003 (an outdated Web building program), I decided to implement a Content Management System (CMS) that could develop along with them.
I took into account that budgeting can be a struggle at small community hospitals. Therefore, I decided to use WordPress as the CMS of choice. It is a free, open source CMS with many plug-ins to expand functionality to meet the hospitalâs growing needs. Because others may need to modify what I have done, I did not want it to be excessively hard to use.
There was really no place for me to âset up shopâ at the hospital. So for the bulk of my internship, I was able to work remotely from home through a VPN (virtual private network) connection. This enabled me to install, build and launch everything from home just like you would a regular website.
Another challenge I faced was setting up the server. I had never done this before either. I have built several websites using WordPress, yet all of them had been set up on web hosting servers and the base installation was already finished for me. I researched all of the requirements for WordPress to be installed on a Windows 2008 server and found the necessary steps to perform a successful installation. The research paid off and my installation and implementation was successful on the first try.
I really enjoyed getting to work with other people who spoke the same language of technology. Being able to troubleshoot with others takes a bit of the stress out of the equation, too. Working from home was also a great asset. I am very self-motivated and like to work without interruption. This format was very advantageous for me. I could get help when I needed it, but when I didnât, I was left alone to do my job.
This internship experience only served to encourage me even more that I am pursuing a career path that I love. I enjoy technology and troubleshooting. Web design and development are my main passions, but I also like learning new software, networking and utilizing hardware too. I believe I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing.
