For students to get the most out of their internship, they need strong mentors to guide them.

At the 5th Annual Lehigh Valley Internship Summit, held July 27 at DeSales University, a panel of interns and employers discussed how to create a meaningful mentorship program, and what interns look for in a mentor.

The panel was moderated by Silvia Hoffman, President at MKSD architects. 

The panelists were:

• Jeanne Reilly, Education Consultant at Lehigh Valley Health Network
• Madelyn Amadio, Research Scholar at Lehigh Valley Health Network
• Jeff Donham, Continuous Improvement Manager at Freshpet
• Omkar Satpute, Intern at Freshpet

“For me, mentorship is not just about someone telling me to do a certain task a certain way,” Satpute said. “A good mentor always shares experiences, gives feedback, and always creates new learning opportunities for you.”

He said Donham involves him in activities that are relevant to his field and where he can learn and develop new skills. Having a strong mentor and relevant and interesting work projects provides interns with encouragement as they pursue their career, he said.

Mentorship is the number one priority during internships at Freshpet, Donham said. It occurs on many levels, including a biweekly lunch-and-learn program where all interns gather so they can interact and learn from each other.

“And then they meet our executive and our senior team. And they learn from them what their career path was, and how they ended up where they ended up, what are some of their experiences,” Donham said.

Satpute said Freshpet’s internship application process included a detailed description of the mentorship that would occur, and that gave him confidence to apply.

“Those are some things that stand out and you feel like applying to that company because you think you'll get the best results from them,” he said.

Reilly said research scholars – undergraduate students working on research – at Lehigh Valley Health Network attend weekly meetings and are offered broad opportunities to shadow professionals ranging from physicians to business administrators.

Having a mentor is important for interns, said Amadio, a junior at Lafayette College. She is working this summer doing research with a street medicine team that serves the homeless.

“My mentor did a great job of really introducing me to not only the patients in the field, but also to everyone that she worked with. So, I had a great opportunity for meeting new people. I think that's really vital for my future because I'm pursuing a career in medicine. And I will be in more like the intern position for a long time as a resident, and I'll be learning from other physicians,” Amadio said. “No matter where you're working in the future, no matter what education you have, you never are going to be fully prepared for your job. And I think that's why mentorship is so important.”

She said interns want to know in advance what opportunities they will have and who will mentor them.

“I'd say from an intern position, something really important when applying for internships was seeing not just what I could do for the company, but what the company could do for me,” Amadio said. “And when I was applying for this research scholar position, I was really interested in the fact that I'd be able to shadow different doctors, I would have that opportunity because I could work in street medicine and maybe see what PAs [physician assistants] and nurses were doing and behavioral health specialists. But I could also take time to go to the hospital, maybe see surgery. So, I knew that there were a lot of chances to broaden my horizons. And that was what really made it appealing.”

Reilly said Lehigh Valley Health Network also provides mentorship by having a senior scholar who has gone through the program before and can serve as a bridge between new scholars and hospital staff.

“She has the ability to connect with them in a different way and provide additional help that I don't always see, or that they're maybe not totally comfortable coming to you at first for. And also, she knows how things work from that perspective,” she said.

The Lehigh Valley Internship Summit was hosted by Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. (LVEDC) in partnership with the region’s colleges and universities.

About 100 people attended the event, which was sponsored by DeSales University and Penn Strategies. The event included a keynote address by Shawn VanDerziel, Executive Director of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), and a panel discussion about how to create meaningful projects for interns.