Peggy Pugh

For me, I attribute my success to my inner grit and my inner desire. Everybody wants to be the best, but not everybody wants to work to be the best, and they don't want to put the work into it. So I think for me, my success has to be from some of the sacrificing that I've done through the years in order to be at this level. It's probably the inner grit, just the inner desire to be better and to keep working. And also, at this stage in my career, I know that no one is still not able to be educated and learn more, so I think because I'm always open to learn more, even at this stage of the game, that helps and attributes to my success because I just want to constantly learn more and get better. I'm humble enough to admit that I don't know it, and my ego's not so large that I can't say, hey, I don't know something. I just would rather learn more and say, hey, if I don't know it, then I'm going to study up and I'll get better with it.

I would tell them, if they want to get into this industry, don't just always assume that it's just going to come and drop into your lap. If you really want it, research, look into the disease states, look into the products, and become the best in your field. I think that if you want to compete, you have to stand out. I always advise women now, and I do this with some of the younger women I mentor within our company - I let the young moms know that the mom guilt is real and it's never going to go away, but how you manage it is all up to you. I advise them to continue to work on their career and continue to make themselves better. If they are working, their children are still seeing them progress and do well, and sometimes the best example you give your child is that work ethic, showing them that mom is still doing this. I advise women in my field that it is long days - there's going to be a lot of long days, a lot of long cases, a lot of times where you may not be home very much. But the sacrifice in the beginning and just working your way up, it's worth it in the end. I tell women now getting into this space, it's not going to be an easy job, it's going to be long hours, but the benefits in the long run do pay off because you get to have a career that you feel like, at the end of the day, you are really helping people and you're giving back to patients. I just advise women that if you really want to do it, just know that your first couple years are probably going to be a grind, but don't give up. Continue to get better and continue to grow, and when the position that they really want comes available, they've already gone through and given that grind in order to get the position they want.

The biggest challenge in my field right now is probably being 5 places at once. I get phone calls that somebody needs me here or somebody needs me there, and just balancing that schedule can be a challenge - making sure I have that work-life balance, doing my job at full potential while also being a good mom and being a good example to my daughter. I wouldn't say it's a challenge from a negative standpoint, it's just that I have to be much more strategic about keeping that balance and making sure I'm giving my daughter a good example and a good home life while also committing to my company and making sure they're getting what they need from me. The challenge can also be just healthcare in general - the challenges of healthcare and the hospital systems. Oftentimes we might be teaching people to be one way in an OR space, but then the hospitals regulate something else, so it's just making sure that I'm up to date on anything new with healthcare because it seems like every month something changes. What I did two or three years ago in the field is different now, so I think it's just making sure you're staying up with all the current trends. As far as opportunities, I still feel like we're launching some really good technology that's truly helping people and their quality of life. There's so many opportunities to just give back to people and help their quality of life. Many of the devices we're doing with BD, we're just at the surface of what we can give back to communities and give back to patients. The opportunity I have right now is to continue to grow within education - I'm working on really developing our program and developing our educational space so that when people come through, they know a lot more. I'm also trying to work on their levels of learning, so I can use AI, interactive modules, 3D printing with livers or different things to actually give our people opportunities to learn. Our company is allowing us within our sales enablement department to be able to enhance the learning, not just be traditional lecture and sit down and do notes all day. I'm really pushing for us to have other ways of learning because we have a lot of college kids straight out of college who learned virtually or had AI or learned with interactive simulators, and we've got to find ways that we can enhance learning for them.