Grace Schoech Berry, MHA, BS, MLS(ASCP)

I attribute my success to perseverent nature. Quite frankly, I don't like to quit and I don't like to lose. But that doesn't mean I'm inflexible, either. When I've come across struggles or setbacks, I keep my head up and think, "Ok, that didn't work. Let's try that a different way." I don't phrase it to myself as losing, so much as rerouting my path. My mom always said that you only see the new and cool stuff when you take the detours.

When you don't know the answer to something, it's okay to say you don't know. One of my veteran coworkers told me early in my career that I don't have to know everything. She said I could put someone on hold or ask for their number and call them back after researching the answer. Coming out of college, there's so much pressure to know everything, and you feel like if you don't know something right away, it's terrible. But she taught me that it's perfectly fine to say 'That's an excellent question, let me research and I will find an answer and get back to you.' You don't need to know the answer right then, and you don't have to pretend you do just to look good.

I would say that if you want to go into the medical field, you don't have to be funneled into nursing just because that's the expectation. Nursing is very admirable, but not everybody has the desire to do all the things that nurses do, and I'm so glad they do, but it's not for everybody. There's this stigma where if you say you don't want to be a nurse, people react like that's strange. But it's okay to say that. You don't have to be funneled into any career path. If you like math and science, if you like STEM fields, it's okay to stand up and claim it. There are many meaningful careers in healthcare that take on all kinds of fields.

The biggest challenge is that this is a hidden field. Not a lot of people realize this field even exists and how necessary it is for assisting providers with diagnosis. Every time someone gets their blood drawn or leaves a urine specimen, that gets tested, and it's not robots that do it. There are people who do it, people who look at the results and realize if the results are good or need further testing. It's still very much a hands-on field even with all our instrumentation. A lot of people going into science, especially women, think hospital equals nursing, and if they don't want to be a nurse, they're not really sure what else they can do. For those of us that love science, unless you know about the field, it's kind of hidden. The opportunities to grow within this field are also harder because we tend to not move out of the field too often. People stay in their positions for so long, so opportunities to move up are more difficult. If you want to accelerate your career, you have to be willing to physically move in the country or move laterally within the hospital. The opportunities are slimmer, which is definitely a challenge for this field.

I value integrity and ownership. Showing up when you say you will, and owning up to mistakes, to me, that makes you the most trustworthy kind of person. It shows you have respect for others. The key to collaboration is follow-through. Words aren't anything until you start performing as you said you would. Ownership is showing respect for yourself, that you're willing to learn and adjust.