Katherine Brown

I'll be transparent, the first thought that came to my mind is definitely my faith and my relationship with God. I think that I've definitely been fortunate enough to have that help me be encouraged and also teach me along the way. In that same breath, my parents played a huge role. I have a short, quick story - I was not sure about the direction within the medical field, I was thinking about becoming a doctor and different ways to enter the medical field, but my dad is actually who encouraged me to be a nurse, and he really spoke life into me in that. I always tell my friends this story - I'm so glad I listened to my dad in that regard because it definitely changed my trajectory in my life. So I would say that my parents, my faith, and also my husband, who really supports me, and the close friends and families that I have that I can always lean on to encourage me as I'm going throughout these journeys.

I would say that as you are going through your journey in life, primarily try to take the time to understand who you are as a person. I think that when we're younger, it's sometimes a bit difficult to know that because there's just a lot of distractions and things like that, but I think having that time to yourself to understand who you are in life and what you may want out of life, which might change along the way, is important. At every checkpoint in your life, if you're able to do that, that helps make a difference in the steps that you take. But also, make sure to keep a village of people - it could be a woman or whoever that you look up to - to really support you. Because people who have the experience really know how to kind of help direct you, but also give you advice that you may not know you need in that moment, but that you can go back to and relay on as life goes on and you're kind of going through different areas in your life.

I think one of the biggest challenges that we face when working in the field is really trying to understand what hospitals are in need of as it relates to improving patient care. As things are advancing and we're looking and hearing a lot about AI and the changes and advances of technology, I think that things can get a bit fuzzy as we are looking into ways to help hospitals improve their patient care system. Really learning how to define what it is that the patient needs, but also understanding outside of the patient, how can we help clinicians better the work that they're doing is something that I think is a gap that we're trying to close. From the outside, if you're trying to get into the field, I think that one of the struggles for some people as they're coming in is that as nurses, we are not confident in the skill sets that we have learned along the way. One of the challenges that we face as nurses is understanding how to translate our skill set from our background working at bedside and translating that into health technology, whether that's what you're interested in, or working for utilization management, or whatever that looks like. I find myself trying to figure out ways to help close that gap with people who are interested in getting into the field.

I would say my top two to three values primarily include integrity. I think in life, and in work, and just in anything you do, you have to have integrity as you are going through your field. I think that is important, not only for yourself, but I think also in building bridges amongst people. Integrity is a big part of that. I also value being a go-getter. I think that understanding that you have to really go for the things that you want, and be confident in yourself, and also know that if you believe it, and it's something that you are passionate about, you should just go for it and do it.