Lauren Vance

I would say determination, but I've had a lot of people that believed in me and saw the drive, saw my personality, how that affected our patients and our staff, how I was willing to always have that helping hand. At times, I didn't recognize it, but a lot of others saw that in me and encouraged me to keep pursuing, and encouraged me to take on more of a job role, and encouraged me to keep going throughout all of this. Even in the position that I'm in right now, I have a lot of coworkers and amazing managers throughout my time at Baptist that have encouraged me and pushed me to be where I am, and also pushing me to do more because they know that I have experience and that I can do more. I contribute a lot of it to my coworkers - they helped drive me. And then also, my husband, he was always my person that has my back. Whenever I'm doubting myself, he's the best reinforcement to me.

I always have this quote that I've always liked, which is, success is about how fast you get there, it's about refusing to stop even when the road gets hard. I think that's always been one of my pushers for myself - it doesn't matter what time of your life you're in, what career you're in, you should find what you love to do and pursue it, and not let anything stop you. I feel like I was late in my career when I really decided to settle down and apply myself in one, and the sky's the limit. As long as you love doing what you do, just don't stop. It might get hard. You might feel like you're too old to start something, you're not. You just gotta go.

I feel like healthcare can be very strenuous. You need to be able to be at the job, do the job, but then also separate. You have to have that work-life, personal-life balance for sure. But also, take the initiative when something feels frustrating. Smile. Just understand that, especially in healthcare, we're dealing with people that have been through a lot - if they were healthy, they wouldn't be seeing us most of the time, right? So let's just try to have the best attitude we can, let's show compassion to our patients, but take it slow. Try not to let the job stress you out, because at the end of the day, we work for more hours at a job than we do usually with our families, so we need to be able to separate that. Sometimes that's even a struggle for me to continue as I keep getting more, but keep going. Keep pushing yourself, keep striving, keep working hard, but make sure you have that workplace, personal life balance. That'll keep you going.

I feel like challenges are - I think sometimes you get to a position where you feel like you've hit a glass ceiling, like you don't know where you can go from here. I'm at the top of the training world right now. I mean, I do have a manager above me, but then I look and I'm like, my manager's younger than I am. There's no way I would surpass her. So you think, like, I'm behind. Maybe if I would have started earlier, I could have gotten to where I was, but then I think, and I'm like, I'm just exactly where I'm supposed to be. I think the obstacle is trying to decide if you're comfortable, or if you want to keep going. And then if you want to keep going, what are you going to learn to get out of where you are, like, in your path. What other opportunities are there? That's always an obstacle for me. It's like, if I wanted to do more, what would I do? And how would I achieve that?

My values would be, well, first off, kindness. You have to have - you have to be kind and compassionate. But you also need to be adaptable in the sense of, you know, life isn't - life, work, it's not always gonna go the way that you want it to go. Be adaptable, but be considerate and kind, and you will be surprised at how easy things can fall into place, and how the drive can just keep going.