Katherine Hartwig

I think just having a good support team around me. My parents have always supported me through everything that I've ever done, and I think that having that go-to confidence in your corner always makes you believe that you can do a lot of different things. Also, just working harder than everyone else in the room around me, especially in a male-dominated field. You just have to put your head down and be the smartest person in the room, because men can make mistakes and oh, they're just getting their legs, but especially in a male-dominated field like surgery and orthopedics, if you mess up, then you're known as the dumb blog. So I have to work harder and be smarter to prove myself.

When I was interviewing for this role, my uncle, who's in orthopedic trauma in Corpus Christi, told me that every single person who interviews for a role like this gets nervous and just tries to spit out numbers and things they've done. But the interviewer is usually looking at you the way you would talk to a surgeon. If you're just bragging on yourself and trying to talk about statistics and numbers over and over again, that's going to be really unattractive to anyone interviewing. Instead, make the interviewer feel comfortable, ask them questions about the role, and understand that the interviewer wants to see how you would speak to a surgeon or a doctor, or how you would sell them on something. They're not looking to hear all your specs. That was good advice.

Work harder than the man next to you. I know that sounds cliche and stupid, but 100%, be the smartest person in the room, know your stuff. And constantly network. Networking is so important in this industry.

The biggest challenge I face is that some surgeons, not all, but some don't want a female rep. They want to speak to a man, and they think that man knows what he's talking about. They'll be like, call your boss, call Kyle, call whoever. Especially in the first 6 months, that was something I had to overcome, and still today, because there are some people who have been here for 10 or 15 years, and certain surgeons will talk to them and not me. At first, that was really hard, but now I know it's just not personal, and I just have to keep proving to them that I'm worthy of helping them out and being there. As for opportunities, specifically at my company, they definitely support your wants and needs to maybe be in a position of leadership eventually. I get a lot of time to talk to my manager one-on-one about it. Eventually, I would like to be in a territory manager or managerial role because I would like to be a people leader eventually, and they do a really good job of meeting you where you're at with that. Once you get into medical device sales, usually after 2 to 3 years of experience, you can go into different specialties, like if I wanted to do plastics after this, or neurovascular, or spine, or other kinds of specialties. Once you work in the field for a couple years, that opens doors if for some reason I didn't want to do ortho forever.

I am very heavily a practicing Christian, specifically Catholic, and I have been my whole life. That's something that leads me every day to make the decisions that I make and to do the things that I do. It's very important to me that, even though it's not something I necessarily talk about at work, my religious beliefs and morals guide my decisions at work pretty heavily. Also, integrity and honesty, especially when you're in a surgical role. Maybe something you brought the wrong size implant, or maybe you're not 100% sure of the surgeon's plan. Being honest with all those things instead of trying to bullcraft your way through it, I think is really important. In other sales you might be able to, but this is surgery. So my religious Christian beliefs and then honesty is a big one for me.