Prescript is four years old!
It’s good to have the opportunity to pause and reflect sometimes. Birthdays and anniversaries are often traditional times to take stock and look back. Late March marked four years since Prescript opened its doors as medical recruitment specialists.
We’re known for solving the regional doctor shortage in Australia, leaving doctors loving what they do and regional communities feeling like they have the best doctors in town.
A lot has changed over the last four years, here are four of the lessons I’ve learned along the way.
1) Team is everything.
Every day the team at Prescript is focused on what we do best - helping regional areas find doctors, filling rosters and providing peace of mind.
We’ve now grown to eight (plus Bonnie of course!).
We all care about the work that we do and the impact it has on the regional doctor shortage. These regions are also our communities - our HQ might be in Sydney, but we are spread far and wide along the coast from Bega Valley up to the border of coastal NSW/QLD.
To stay connected as a team, we get together three times a year to celebrate and acknowledge hard work. We also reflect on how we can provide a better level of service to the doctors, hospitals and practices we partner with.
Below are some recent Prescript photos - our planning retreat to Watson’s Bay; attending the 2019 Australian Small Business Champions Awards; a celebratory boat trip on the harbour and lastly, our HQ office in Darlinghurst.
2) Always think of the impact on patient care
Every day we’re focused on two clear outcomes - Helping hospitals find doctors that create departments and clinics that run better, have more capacity and less stress. And placing Doctors in jobs that leave them feeling highly valued, rewarded and, most importantly, enjoying what they do.
On occasion, it can be easy to disconnect the recruitment services we provide from patient care. We try and overcome this be visiting as many of the hospitals and clinics as we can - it is only by walking around emergency departments, touring practices, seeing radiology clinics and meeting with medical administration that we realise how crucial recruitment is to their smooth running.
Since 2015 we have visited every State and Territory - been on the tilting train from Bundaberg to Rockhampton; taken a shuttle bus to Noosa; driven to Bunbury and Busselton; bumped around in a 4x4 in the Northern Territory - just some of the adventures to meet Prescript doctors and Prescript clients.
Sometimes a vacancy can make front page news for the right reasons - Prescript worked on a global recruitment project to find a Neurologist for a regional city. We used our 7-Step Recruitment Framework for a successful outcome and not only did the local paper splash the good news on its front page we also received an acknowledgement from the State Health Minister. It gives the whole Prescript team a feeling of accomplishment to know that a community now has access to the healthcare it deserves.
Below are some photos from recent trips - Bundaberg, Fremantle, Hervey Bay, Launceston and Canberra.
3) Recruitment doesn’t have to be boring
We are always trying innovative ways to attract doctors to regional areas. Traditional advertising still works, but if you want to persuade doctors to make a sea or tree change then something different is needed to cut through.
Grace Clueit leads our marketing at Prescript and along with some fantastic external suppliers has created some memorable campaigns on behalf of our clients.
Here is one example of a recruitment video for the Fraser Coast. Doesn’t it make you want to live there?
4) Importance of being a business for good
At Prescript, we want to make sure our values flow through everything we do. That’s the reason why we decided to set an annual giving goal through our partnership with the Global Giving Business initiative, B1G1.
In 2018, our target was to pay for the salary for a doctor in rural Kenyan village (and we did it - read more here on our blog). Our target for 2019 is to provide 10,000 check-ups for Indian children living in slums (you can follow our progress here).
We love linking our everyday business activities to our giving goal. We share this with Prescript doctors and Prescript clients, so everyone knows that together we are making a great difference in the world by doing what we do every day.
Shikshan Gram in the video below is a shelter for homeless children and is one of the charities delivering the medical check-ups towards our 10,000 goal.
Happy Birthday, Prescript! Looking forward to the year ahead.
James Hill - Founder and Recruitment Partner
Find our more about Prescript on our About Us page.