PVHMC FMRP

Project goals

• - Clearly communicate that Pomona is in Southern California
• - Create a booth design that can be re-used in coming years
• - Showcase diversity of residents' educational and cultural backgrounds

You know those stories about beloved, family-run corner stores? The kind of places that make a town feel like home. That's how I feel about Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center (PVHMC). I grew up in Pomona in a family of nurses and doctors. The name Pomona Valley Hospital was constantly in conversation. I drove past the hospital on the way to school. I've had family born there and siblings that worked there. One of my cousins actually applied to their family medicine residency program (the way I found out is pretty funny...ask me about it sometime)! Being able to work for them and learn from their team was such an honor. This project is very close to my heart.

When a doctor chooses to specialize in family medicine, it means they will learn to care for you literally from birth into old age and everything in between. Family medicine is heavily tied to community and Pomona Valley is a shining example of this. I will do my best to paint a clear picture of why here. It's also cool to note that PVHMC is one of the FMRPs still offering full-spectrum training when many have recently cut obstetrics from their curriculum. The hospital was recently featured by NPR as a leader in the fight against maternal death rates in the U.S. I worked closely with the program directors and a team of residents to strategize and design PVHMC'S booth presence at the largest family medicine conference in the nation.

Moodboard

The residents wanted to tie the booth design to the style of the historic Pomona Arts Colony. So I dove into researching and began by pulling together iconic art from the city's history as well as murals that currently reside there.

Hand-lettering explorations

I was really inspired by the art I found in my research and wanted to honor all the craftsmanship that went into making it. So I hand made as many elements as I could. This included typography, sketching, digital painting, and transferring designs to wood. It was also a good excuse to work on skills I wanted to improve or hadn't tried before.

Brochure

Location is a huge deciding factor for potential residents and many family med students search specifically for programs in Southern California. Even though their booth is always located in the Southern California section, the residency expressed frustration with attracting residents to their program. And when viewed against residencies located in Los Angeles like USC or UCLA, it became an even more difficult battle. Communicating location became priority 1. We applied this to the main backdrop of the booth and I thought a fun extension of this solution could be to make the program brochure look like a postcard, referencing the famous "Greetings from" vintage cards. This idea resonated with the residents because the back of each brochure could be personalized with a handwritten message. This became a key piece of the booth strategy and really reflected the program's warm atmosphere. Residents would get to know each booth visitor and personalize each brochure with a handwritten message. We received feedback afterwards that Pomona Valley was the only booth to give personalized communications.

The mural and booth setup

The wooden California, world map, and photo album

PVHMC's residents have practiced and lived all over the world! The residents are selected to reflect Pomona's diversity so they can better serve the community and sharpen each other with their varied professional and lived experiences. The world map was purchased so that the team could reference it when sharing about the diversity of residents. Each year, small photos of each resident are placed with their respective country and region on the wooden map. I also had California lasercut and engraved with PVHMC's location and a few key destinations as another element for referencing location.

Whenever I was on-site at the hospital there were constantly little events and gatherings sprinkled throughout hectic schedules. These were moments I could see the doctors bonding, and having fun, and supporting each other. I wanted a place for the residency to collect those moments and to be able to share them at the booth so I had a leather photo album customized with the PVHMC branding and filled it with photos from the resident events. We also purchased an instax camera so they could continue to add to it as time went on.

The orange crates

You can probably tell by now that oranges were a big theme in this booth! Pomona was known in the 20s as the Queen of the Citrus Belt as an economic leader in growing citrus. Two of the giveaways at the booth were hot & cold packs that looked like oranges and lemon-flavored eos lip balms. I customized some small wooden crates to use as a giveaway display.

Social media strategies

In addition to designing the booth, I also refreshed the residency instagram, designed strategy for their social media efforts, and helped them get started on Twitter. I managed their social media from 2017-2019 before the residency took over in the second half of 2019. I left them with a simple set of social media guidelines and strategies to keep them moving forward.

Final thoughts

I'm happy to report that the booth is doing well! The team welcomed triple the normal rate of visits to the booth in 2018. We received feedback that we were the only residency giving personalized brochures. Visitors were very intrigued by the map and where all the residents had studied and lived prior to studying at PVHMC. And most importantly, the residents were proud of their booth. In their own words, it was the first time they looked at their booth and thought it held its own next to USC and UCLA.