Julia Smith MBA, MSN, RN

I attribute my success to deep resiliency and a firm commitment to that never-say-no mentality. Saying yes to challenges is precisely what got me noticed by senior leadership and allowed me to make a massive career leap directly from a quality and infection prevention nurse position into my current executive role. However, talent and drive only take you so far. I also attribute my success to the immense faith my organization had in my potential. If it weren't for Black River Health having faith in me, I would not be here today. Having an employer that trusts your capability and backs your growth is what makes a non-traditional career trajectory possible.

The best career advice I ever received focuses on the complex nature of timing: a great opportunity may not come at the right time, but the right time might not bring a great opportunity. It taught me that perfect alignment between your personal life and a professional breakthrough is incredibly rare. When a massive door opens, you can't always wait for a convenient moment to walk through it. You have to ask yourself if you are willing to seize a great opportunity right now, even though the timing isn't right, rather than risking the chance that it may never come around again. When I took my current executive role, I had a young child, and it was hard to be in this role with a small child, but you just can't pass it up just because the timing isn't right.

For those aspiring to step into leadership, my advice is to be willing to take on different projects, get out of your comfort zone, and work with a never-say-no mentality. This allows you to continue to broaden the things you've done and show your capabilities, which helps the opportunities for leadership come directly to you. For frontline nursing, especially as we navigate a persistent national nursing shortage with more nurses retiring than entering the field, I urge you to really advocate for people to continue looking at nursing as a career. Nursing is a great career. The flexibility and the different avenues that you can go after becoming an RN are really almost endless, and there are just great opportunities. Our nation is aging, and we need nurses. When you pick a place to work, make sure you advocate for yourself and find the right fit for you, because once you find the right fit, your career really starts to blossom.

Working in rural healthcare is a classic double-edged sword. It is simultaneously my greatest challenge and my greatest strength. In a rural medical setting, you don't have the luxury of sticking to a single, neatly defined role. You have to wear many different hats every single day. While managing such fragmented responsibilities is incredibly demanding, it also forces you to become exceptionally flexible and adaptable. This environment trains you to move quickly and navigate the shifting complexities of the modern healthcare landscape, from fluctuating reimbursement models to strict accreditation requirements, with a level of agility that you rarely develop in larger, more segmented systems.

Collaboration is incredibly important to me. While there is definitely a place for being authoritative, I find that there's more success when you're collaborative. You can always get to where you need to go, but still be collaborative, and that is super important to me. Honestly, it works better at work than at home, because with kids sometimes it's different. Compassion is also very important to me. Healthcare is stressful, so really understanding one another and getting to know each other helps with everything. It helps with decisions that have to be made, because when there's compassion involved, then there's trust involved. When you're having to make decisions and you trust one another, it just works better. It's a game changer.