Bearded Biomed

Bearded Round Table: Women Leaders In The Biomed Field

August 10, 2022 Chace Torres/ Rhiannon Thurmond/ Jennifer Vazquez/ Andrea Brainard Season 2 Episode 7
Bearded Biomed
Bearded Round Table: Women Leaders In The Biomed Field
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

I am joined by three amazing female Biomeds at the Bearded Round Table! Rhiannon Thurmond, Andrea Brainard, & Jennifer Vasquez all sit down to talk biomed with your bearded host. We discuss what its been like in their individual journeys, supporting the next generation, and just talk shop about being a BMET! Not to mention I have them play several of the shows games that leave us with good stories and laughs. You don't wanna miss this!

Check out the full episode on YouTube below:
https://youtu.be/scuY7qK59NQ

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Watch the video podcast on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLisOVWzYA0rq9UrYCz7fU7HNBjXgwc8DG

Chace Torres:

Now today's episode is sponsored by PyCube. PyCube is committed to providing you and your team the ability to save precious time and money. And locating those pesky assets, such as IV pumps, telemetry boxes, utilizing RFID technology, giving you the tools and the ability to succeed When we started season two, I started the bearded roundtable. This is a collaboration where I bring on fellow biomed colleagues in the field to talk about all things within our field that's relevant to us. So to start off, Andrew, if you'd like to get us started, just if you could, you know, tell us a little bit about yourself your background and we'll get the ball rolling. Sure. Thanks Jase for having us on. I'm Andrea Brainerd. I have been in the field since 1997. So I've been around a while. I've done in house service. I've done field service for third party ISO. And when I started at Children's I started out as a tech one and I have worked my way up to my current position as a director. Like you said, I love helping the young folks. I think the kids are for two this started from the bottom now we're here. Yeah.

Jennifer Vazquez:

Well, I'm Jennifer VAs was I've only been in the industry about eight years. So I'm one of those young people most people keep talking about. I'm not sure if I can give you clearance on that last statement. But currently, I'm employed with Crothall healthcare, recently looking forward to a transition within the company I've been around quite a bit I've served third party ISOs done rentals done field service been around in this short period of time that I've got. So even though I'm a young buck, I've I've been around. Yeah.

Rhiannon Thurmond:

Thanks for having me, Chace Well, I started in 2006 graduated from Texas State Technical College in Waco as an in house biomed. with Aramark, through St. Joseph's regional in Bryan, Texas, I did that for 10 years, and then ventured out into field service working with ultimate biomedical solutions.I started as a tech two and work my way up to manager I manage a team of about five biomeds, and we travel all over the state of Texas. Fantastic having all three of you on, you know, it's kind of funny that three out of the four of us are in Texas, it's a small world more. So you know, Jennifer, I've we've ran into each other a couple of conferences now. And like said, While you've all you've done a lot, hence, you know, while you're here, every one of you, you know, through LinkedIn, or maybe Facebook or whatever the conferences, whatever avenues that we have within the field,

Chace Torres:

I truly appreciate seeing how you guys take the time to not only uplift our field, but do so in a manner that we bring attention to maybe something that should be addressed, picking up our P's and Q's as biomass within the field. Bringing attention to something that one thing that comes to mind specifically. So when I saw a post on LinkedIn to where, you know, you came across a particular repair of some batteries that should have been changed, there was absolutely no excuse whatsoever. And it's the little miniscule things, not paying attention to the details biomed so it gets us into trouble. And that's the kind of stuff that we need to instill in these younger techs coming in to the field, letting them recognize that we have to, obviously take the job seriously. But mind the little details because the little details can end up hurting somebody. So I appreciate you know, just every little thing that you do for the field. Being a female within the field because we don't have enough, plain and simple we the percentage in comparison to the 50. And older white male is astronomically just ridiculous, what are some experiences that you have came across that, you know, we could do better within the field and obviously, outreach to the younger generation to get more females into the field.

Andrea Brainard:

I mean, you know, I'll say that was that was a big driver for me to get into the field back in 1995. When I started college at TSTC, as I didn't have a clue what I want to do with my life, I'd always fix cars, I've rebuilt engines, so I was, you know, I knew I was mechanically inclined, just didn't want to be dirty all the time. And the, you know, the guy I was dating at the time, who's now my husband, you know, he had to go to TSTC to get his degree and diesel mechanics, because military wasn't good enough back, then you had to have a piece of paper. So I, you know, I'm looking through the course catalog, you know, going, Oh, this looks interesting. So and talk to the dean at the time. And he's like, Yeah, you know, those of you to fix stuff, you get to be in an inside environment. And he goes, and then the one thing he said, he goes, and right now it's a male dominated field. And I literally turned around and said, Sign me up. Because that's who I am. It's like, oh, you're saying, Guys, only guys do this? Okay. Well, let me let me put a stop to that, and show you right. So that's, that's been my driving force. This whole time is, you know, getting the word out. And how do you get that word out, get out, you know, trying to get more women in STEM fields, just in general, not even necessarily biomed. But get interested in the mechanical, fixing cars, you know, doing things with your hands. And that's why I've been fairly involved in trying to get on these college boards. You know, talk to AAMI, talk at MD Expo, do things like this is to get the word out, not necessarily also females, but to anybody.

Rhiannon Thurmond:

I feel like just simply being an inspiration to others, through social media networks helps a lot to inform other people about what our industry is there. And a lot of people out there that still really don't understand and grasp what a Biomedical Equipment Technician knows. So the more we can share our knowledge. And I can put little photos and little snippets on LinkedIn, the more people I can draw in and say, Oh, wow, that looks like a really fun, cool job or career. And, you know, honestly, just through the social media works that I've been doing over the last four or five years on LinkedIn, I think I've recruited about seven Biomedicine for which were women, which is super exciting. I'm seeing a lot more women come into the field. And it's it's really not a scary field. It's something that we are all trained and capable of doing. I'm not, I guess I'm of the older generation. So I'm not. I'm not out there. But I love watch. I love your seeing your posts. I'm like, wish I could do that more. You know, granted, I don't turn wrenches anymore. But I love scrolling. And I'm like, Oh, there she is. And it's like, they're great posts, and I appreciate you doing those things very well. I think it's pretty, it's pretty neat. You know, one of my my new hires that she's been with us for about a year now. And she came to me and went through school because she found out I was a biomed while we played roller derby together. So we started as roller derby teammates, and she saw me go to the games and my ultimate biomed field service vehicle. And occasionally I'd have to take a phone call to go fix a piece of equipment at halftime, and then come back to the game. And she thought that was really cool. So she got into school and she's been she's been killing it out here. You know, she's there's not a thing that she doesn't touch that she's not afraid to tear into and explore and ask questions. How does this work? And, you know, and it's all about just getting up the courage to accept the challenge and go out and, and look at the issue. A lot of times the problems are not that difficult to repair with our critical thinking skills that we've learned and the knowledge we have gained over the years.

Jennifer Vazquez:

All right, when I first got into the field and exposed to it, I was exposed when I was in high school. And it was through a research paper that I pretty much signed to everybody else in the class to take because I didn't know what I wanted to be either. And my teacher was kind of noticed that I was kind of disappointed. I didn't end up in medical class that was like, couple buildings over and that was stuck in engineering. And I'm like, well, everything that you're teaching me is like, like we can something that an architect could take more advantage of? And he's like, Well, I mean, there's engineering within the medical field too. And I'm like, really? I called him out on his bluff and he was actually speaking truth. And that's how I ended up being exposed to it. You know, that was still in times of Myspace, believe it or not. I think I just aged everyone in this room

Chace Torres:

It's funny we all kind of have where the job kind of fell into our lap, like, we had no idea and then someone just let us know about or we learned from somebody else. And, you know, it's, that's the, it's almost I don't want to say it's the wrong answer. But every single biomed I've spoken to on the show, at conferences and on the job, it's all I found out from somebody or, you know, it's never it's still not well known, hence, the podcasts and what Amy's doing and what you know, Justin (Better Biomed) and other channels and, you know, we're sure we can get accolades and taps on the shoulder but So, we can promote the field to get people you know, in the seat and interested because a lot of people would find this field rewarding, hence why, you know, we have so many people that are willing to talk about it. It that that means something We have the conversations where we have so many issues within our field that, you know, are constantly addressed at every conference at every biomed Society meeting. What are some of the challenges that you guys recognize thatwe could do a better job at, but Do you perhaps have any kind of solutions to, you know, some of the same old thing, we have an aging workforce, we don't have the demographics that we need to have within the field, don't have a pipeline of people wheeling around and awareness, you know, the list goes on and on. It's been the same thing that we always talk about. But, you know, I would just love to hear your perspective on that.

Andrea Brainard:

All of the above? Yes. 100%. You know, I think right now, I think across the country, for everybody. I think COVID really let a lot of people retire early is what I feel like, you know, I've got four open positions right now with zero resumes to speak of in the last month. And five years ago, that was not even the case, like resumes would come flying in. So you know, what's happened? Where, where is everybody? Right now? You know, I were trying to create pipelines, but those are only as good as, as, again, trying to get people into the pipelines.

Rhiannon Thurmond:

I'm also seeing issues, you know, with retaining the employees, once we get them. We're hiring, I'm seeing a lot of employers are hiring entry level techs, because the pay is where they want it. And they're expecting entry level techs to perform tech to tech level jobs. And that's setting that entry level tech up for failure, and it's causing safety issues. Not to mention the strain it's taking on your, your veteran technicians that have been around in your leadership committees that are actually trained to train these entry level techs to do things safely. And so the expectations are really high from these employers, for those entry level techs, and they're not willing to pay what pay the money that they deserve. So you've got all this competition out there, that's going to pay higher than the employees you're going to get. And coupled with. Everybody's wearing different hats, because we have to play so many different roles due to the lack of people. And I mean, as biomeds we kind of experiences day to day dealing with clinicians as well, because, you know, you have some people that you can just chatted up have a conversation about sports or what you did on the weekend, others just like this want, you know, what did you do? Did you do have, I have some customers that are just like, Alright, give me give me the bare bones, just what I need to know and get the hell out of my face. And others just like, you know, their most friendliest. Some of them have become friends. It just, that's part of the world that we exhibit is we have to, you know, acclimate and traverse the different clinician personality. But when you get into our realm, we talk with simplicity, we talk with elegance, we, we have a rapport with our customers, we build relationships. And that's also like, what the older generation, like, you know, I had al Moretti and David brought in ham and P, and, you know, everybody come on, and they're like, you gotta make the rounds, you gotta go, people, you got to build that relationship. Because if you're not doing that, they don't, for the most part, they don't see what you're doing, they don't see the value that you're bringing into their facility. So, you know, you have to, you know, I imagine you guys had to fight for a you know, that you guys had to fight for, where you are today to, you know, work harder than I would guess, and some of the other gentlemen that had to in the same position. But, you know, that's why I want to do one here today, because, you know, the female Bob, I can't, I can't put a talk to them, like they something about the female mind, like you guys just have an attention to detail that I will never be able to fathom or you know, be able to replicate. It's, that's why I want in the field, because you guys bring something to the table that the traditional, just regular, you know, of,

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