Liz Fare

Other than the willingness to say yes, I think I've had good opportunities, and I also wasn't afraid to work hard. I used to commute 72 miles each way, and so I would be up at 4 AM, not get home till 6 p.m. But it was... I knew I was making change, and I was also getting invaluable experience. I think that had I said no to those opportunities because they were harder, I never would be where I am today. If I had an opportunity, if I had a leader who said, can you go try to lead this new department, I always said yes. But I was honest about my knowledge, and then was also honest with the team members who I ended up leading, leveraging their clinical excellence. I think it's okay to take a leadership role over something new, even if you're not the subject matter expert, as long as you're willing to own that and then listen to those who are the subject matter experts.

Take the chance. If you're posed with an opportunity to lead a new department, learn a different workflow, try something outside of your norm, do it. That is how I got to where I am today. I know so much about so many different parts of the hospital operational system that I am able to take what I know, what I've seen in reality, and then provide insights to others who maybe have always been siloed into one specific workflow. I never would have gotten that exposure had I said no to a few opportunities along the way. I was just always open to it. If I had an opportunity, if I had a leader who said, can you go try to lead this new department, I always said yes. But I was honest about my knowledge, and then was also honest with the team members who I ended up leading, leveraging their clinical excellence, but knowing that, big picture, everything's a process. If I can lean on the people who know the job well and just provide my guidance from a process improvement perspective, that's how we can make great change. I think it's okay to take a leadership role over something new, even if you're not the subject matter expert, as long as you're willing to own that and then listen to those who are the subject matter experts.

I would just say that the sky is the limit. Don't feel like you are pigeonholed into one kind of nursing. Keep your eyes open, because our field is endless. Speak up, be creative, think outside the box, and just always be thinking, what can I do better?

There are so many challenges. I think hospitals are trying to do more with less because of just the financial struggle that we're in as a country. Trying to balance new technologies that are aiming to make things more efficient so that our clinicians can do more clinical work is our end goal, but you want to do that safely, you want to do that with the end user's involvement. I work for a company that utilizes AI heavily, and so we want to make sure that there's governance around that, that we are being safe and thoughtful. I think that's just a huge struggling point that healthcare is dealing with right now, because we're trying to do more with less, we're trying to utilize technology just like everybody else is, but how do you do that in an efficient and safe manner?

I think, obviously, hard work, honesty. Open-mindedness is a huge one for me. And at the end of the day, customer first. We are here, I work in healthcare, even though I'm not doing direct patient care anymore, because I want to create an opportunity for better care for our patients. And if every decision you make circles around that as your main point of importance and priority, you can't go wrong. So I think that's hugely important for me.