Anne Marie Fawbush, MS, BA, AAS, R.T.(R)(M)

I attribute my success to watching my parents, both with no college education, work incredibly hard every single day which instilled in me a strong work ethic. In healthcare, I have always sought to work hard each day and also, just as my parents did, strive each day to achieve that same level of dedication to my work. It has always been of utmost importance to me to ensure that I do my job to the very best of my ability ensuring that each patient received high-quality, safe patient care-the same care I would want my family members to receive. I have always cared about the patient first and foremost, the care that they receive, and the impact I could have by genuinely empathizing with their current situation.

The best career advice I ever received from one of my former leaders, Kurt Essenmacher. Upon letting him know that I was leaving the company to pursue another opportunity, Kurt could tell I was nervous. He said something no leader had ever said or conveyed to me up to that point in my career. Kurt said that I "should never feel bad about moving on to another opportunity that is better for me or my family." He went on to say, "as a leader, my role as well as my goal is to mentor and guide people, and if I do those things well, they will experience both growth and success-and that should be celebrated-even when it means they are moving forward to another opportunity." I've taken that forward with me since that day and shared it many times when someone asks me for career advice.

My advice to young women entering healthcare is to lead with empathy. Throughout my career building genuine relationships and establishing trust has been one of my greatest strengths. In healthcare, no matter where you work-from a frontline healthcare worker to the hospital CEO to a vendor representative, the majority of people you will interact with are not having their best day-in fact, they may be having the worst day of their life. You must be able to empathize with that person and ensure that they understand that you have compassion for what they are currently experiencing. If you can do that, you will see the person's demeanor change, many times they will relax, and what you have done is positively impacted that person possibly having a larger impact than you will ever know. However, if are someone who cannot show empathy, compassion, and understanding-especially during times of high-stress, healthcare may not be the right career path for you.

One of the biggest challenges in healthcare is the rising cost of care in particular high deductibles for patients including patients who are commercially insured, along with limited or total loss of healthcare access in rural communities. Both of these situations, cause patients to delay care and/or not receive the care they need. Many patients, even those who are commercially insured, do not have the extra money to pay their deductible upfront before the deductible it is met. If that patient is in need of an expensive medical exam and/or procedure, they will likely put it off until their deductible is closer to being full or they will forgo getting the care they need all together. Similarly, when a rural community loses access to local healthcare, those patients will also not receive the care they need. As a product of a rural community, I have seen this firsthand. If the community's access to healthcare is lost or limited, the patients in the community cannot obtain healthcare because they either cannot financially afford to travel to a larger metropolitan area and/or they do not even have access to transportation to get them to a larger metropolitan area. Both of these situations can and do result in shortened lifespans of these patients. This is something that is absolutely heartbreaking to me as both a human and a healthcare professional.

At my core, I am a servant leader and the values I rank as most important fall in line with servant leadership. I put high value on authenticity, honesty, kindness, and empathy. I believe in leading by example and I would never ask anyone to do something I am unwilling to do myself. I strive at all times to serve others with integrity, compassion, and genuine respect.