Two Local High School Students Involved in a Local Start-Up

As a senior at North Kingstown High School, you are offered a course called “internship”. Ms. Joy Tavano, one of the teachers in the business department of NKHS, runs it. The class allows for students to find a field they are interested in, and they can intern for fire departments, hospitals, or engineering companies. This year, a former student, Emily Levy, NKHS Class of 2012, approached Ms. Tavano about having NKHS students as interns for her startup. PICCPerfect creates after-market medical accessories for patients going through chronic illness treatment. Their first product is the PICCperfect PICC line cover. For those who do not know, a PICC line is an intravenous access that can be used for a long period of time. It is given to patients with chronic illnesses who need treatment over the period of months, such a Lyme disease, cancer, chronic infections, POTS , and other diseases.

I had gone into Ms. Tavano interested in interning for a medical professional, and she was searching for local doctors or nurses who would allow me to intern for them. While she was looking, Emily had come to her in search of an intern, When Ms. Tavano had told me the internship was for a medical based company that had just begun its start-up process, it was perfect!

After a couple months, Emily gave me tasks to go into local pharmacies and ask if they would be interested in selling our brand. This was a great opportunity for me, it allowed me to step out of my comfort zone and into the real world of sales. On my first venture into a local pharmacy, I was able to talk to the head pharmacists. He gave me great advice on how we should look into selling to surgical supply stores as they would be more likely to carry our products. I learned a lot about walking into a place and trying to sell a product. You will not succeed all of the time, in fact you may get a lot of no’s, but the key is to keep trying. When I walked into that first store, the man was not interested in buying them because he knew they would not sell in his store, but he was happy to point us in a direction where we would could sell them.

The idea of the internship is to learn if you like the field and to gain experience. I believe that with my internship at PICCPerfect, I have learned invaluable lessons and skills. A few of my jobs were to put together the wholesales and make sure the packaging was correct for each PICCline cover. It has only enhanced my aspirations to go into the medical field. I was able to hear stories of how these people are surviving these chronic illnesses and how products like Emily’s PICC line covers are helping them to do simple that we all take for granted with a little style thrown in! The research I did for our social media posts opened my eyes to how people really struggle with simply getting out of bed in the morning due to their chronic pain and illness. Helping in little ways with social media support through our blog and providing PICC line covers, I have learned care and compassion go a long way in making people feel better. I have also learned about what it is like to start a business, the behind the scenes and all of the pieces that go into it - sales, marketing, packaging, and shipping - just to name a few.

PICC Perfect is a great start-up business that I have learned so much from, it is run by great people. Emily can truly relate to her customers, since she went through the treatment of the PICC line for chronic Lyme disease. Our customers are always asking questions that I would not be able to answer, like how is the fabric with the line, or is it tight enough to hold the line without pulling. I would be unable to answer these questions, but the company is personable and able to relate to all of their customers because Emily went through it. I have loved interning for the company, and believe that it is great what Emily is doing. She has brought back her ideas to North Kingstown and her company is growing day by day. Involving local high school students is extremely helpful to the community, they have always preached to give back, and that is exactly what Emily is doing in every way.

You would be surprised to how many people need PICC lines, so make sure you check out the company and share to your friends with PICC lines, the designs are great for every day wear! We want our products to be functional and fashionable! Check out our products at www.piccperfect.com.