Emily Fink

I would say my mom- she just really ingrained a hard work ethic and a caring attitude in me from an early age. She’s the kindest, most selfless human I know. She's the one who shaped who I am and gave me the foundation to succeed in my career.

The best career advice I've received is to put yourself out there and be kind to everyone, because people really remember how you treated them. To sum that all up, don't burn bridges. Being kind and maintaining good relationships with everyone you work with is something that has really stuck with me throughout my career.

I would say network with everyone you can, and don't think that you're above anything. I've found that a lot of new nurses are like, I only want to do ICU, or I only want to do labor and delivery, and it's like, I probably grew the most from those less ideal jobs that weren't as glamorous. Doing the floor jobs that are really, really hard and aren't as nice - I would say try as much as you can. Don't limit yourself to only the prestigious positions, because those challenging, unglamorous jobs are often where you'll learn and grow the most.

For challenges, I would say barriers that are out of my control - there's a lot of politics in healthcare. In my role, I can't sometimes reach certain people because there's contracts in place, even though I think a patient should get the choice. I would also say just overcoming personal fears, because technically I'm in somewhat of a sales role, and it's really hard and intimidating to go out to people, especially people that don't want to speak to you, and step outside my comfort zone and let them know that we have something we can offer that can help patients. As far as opportunities, I would say just growth opportunities, obviously, but with nursing, after you get experience as a nurse, it's very versatile. You can do a lot of different things, so opportunities are endless in a way.

The values most important to me are faith, which is huge for me, integrity, inclusion - that's always been my principle to include everyone, accountability, respect, humility, and compassion. I actually just recently had to write these down for a journaling thing, and while I could list off a million things, these are the core values that guide both my work and personal life.