Written By: David Hewitt, RVP of Sales – East, SpendMend
Remember, before this pandemic took over our lives, when we all used to travel to trades shows?
Last year – about this time – I attended the AHRMM Health Care Supply Chain Conference in San Diego. I recall, we were wrapping up a very long second day of meetings and sessions and the show organizers thoughtfully wheeled in some hospitality stations (read: mobile bars) and number of tall bistro tables so we could all collectively wind down and do a bit of socializing.
I walked over to join a friendly-looking group of attendees who were enjoying a few refreshments and in no time we all got to talking.
I was in the middle of a huge conference room floor that was playing host to a couple thousand healthcare professionals and in that moment, I found myself in a cluster of 8 people. There were managers and staff from various hospitals, suppliers and a GPO rep.
Try as we might, we could not steer our conversation completely away from work and eventually after a few musings about the day of classes and sessions, the topic of “Why?” came up in our conversation.
I was surrounded by a handful of professionals from almost every corner of the healthcare industry and just by chance every one of us was a little *ahem* seasoned in our professional lives. That is to say, we were all at a similar stage where we could choose to do what we wanted with our careers.
But we all chose healthcare…
Why?
We had all flown to that conference and chose to spend a week away from our families and locked ourselves into a conference hall to educate ourselves on the latest trends and information on healthcare.
Why?
I won’t leave you in too much more suspense. Unanimously, we all agreed it was about the mission of “Patient Care.”
The reason why we do this every day is because we all wished to make the world just a little healthier and we wanted to improve the overall quality of people’s lives. This ambition rings even more true in the current environment; it seems we’ve all been recently reminded that our health is fragile and that good, high-functioning healthcare is vital.
The fact is, when you work in healthcare – you have a job that really matters. Whether you’re serving in the most hands on capacity like a surgeon or a nurse; whether you are supporting a hospital in one of its many back office capacities; whether you represent the vast population of solution providers – you are helping to make people healthier.
This simple conversation was a real highlight of that show for me. Heck, it was a highlight of my whole year.
What’s your “why?”