Amanda Nemchik

I died in a car accident in 2016 where I was hit head-on at 70 miles an hour on the highway. The car flipped twice, set on fire, I died and left my body, I have a metal leg from it, all my teeth ran out, I had a pulmonary embolism. It was many years of recovery, not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually. I was not living right and I was an atheist, and now I'm not. So I am, in some weird ways, grateful for that experience because it taught me a lot about being on the patient side, having previously been on the clinical side. I realized, and now I keep it in the forefront of my mind, that this life is but a vapor. As the Bible says, we only have today because we don't have any clue what's going to happen tomorrow. The only thing that you take with you is how you treated other people. That's it. That's all you have. So for me, it's just keeping that in the forefront, no matter what happens, no matter what anybody says to me or does to me. I have to remember that this is not all there is, and that we must be kind to one another and be compassionate, and realize that everybody's going through something. I would say compassion.

The best career advice I ever received was to, no matter what I do in life, no matter what goal in terms of position that I'm pursuing, always be mindful that you're trying to build leaders, to disciple people into calling out the greatness in people and speaking to who they want to become. Because when you're building other people up, you're also building yourself. I think that's a mindset perspective shift, because really, a lot of people in my life I've seen, including myself at times, where you're just so focused on yourself and your goals, and really, you end up miserable, even if you do get the position or you make the goal. It's about other people. It's about serving people, and really, we're happiest as humans when we're serving others and helping others.

Don't be scared. Don't be scared, don't be intimidated. Know who you are and what you bring to the table. Be willing to collaborate and to be as collaborative as possible. So don't be scared, know who you are, know what you bring, and be willing to collaborate with other people.

I would say the biggest challenges are the payer landscape. There's a lot more complications in terms of restrictions, and payers are reorganizing their medical policies to make it a little bit more difficult to get some biologics. Because biologics are a little newer in the last few years, but they're not new enough to where payer complications and payer restrictions aren't a challenge. The opportunities are that we have biologics coming out for all different types of rare diseases. If you would have asked me 10 years ago if that was the thing, I would have said no, probably not. So it's a whole new opportunity for rare disease, for people suffering with different diseases and disease states, and it's also a big opportunity for those who want to get into the field of pharmaceutical or field reimbursement. It's just a whole other wing of pharmaceutical industry that's now getting larger and larger.

Jesus Christ is first, always, first and foremost, no matter what, over any job, over any relationship. He is the foundation of my life.