Solidly Starting Your Medical Device Career

Written By Patrick Kothe
 
 
 
 

Jordan Griffin is a Field Clinical Specialist at Boston Scientific. Jordan’s no stranger to the medical device field, as her dad owns a distributorship focused on spinal implants.  In this episode she shares what it was like to be a daughter of a busy, successful surgical distributor, product and sales education and how it differs in direct and distributor companies, managing a rural territory, how a clinical specialist differs from a sales rep, and what it’s like to interview and break into a large company.  

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Episode Transcript

This transcript was generated using an automated transcription service and is minimally edited. Please forgive the mistakes contained within it.

[00:00:30] Pat Kothe: Welcome! This year, we've had some great discussions with senior members of the medical device community. Today, we're going to speak with someone that's a little more junior, and who's at the beginning of her career. Our guest today is Jordan Griffin, a Field Clinical Specialist at Boston Scientific. Jordan's no stranger to the medical device field, as her dad owns a distributorship focused on spinal implants. But after working with him for a while, she decided to blaze her own trail and move to a new company and a new state. In our conversation, we discuss what it was like to be the daughter of a busy, successful surgical distributor, product and sales education and how it differs in direct and distributor companies, managing a rural territory, how a clinical specialist differs from a sales rep, and what it's like to interview and break into a large medical device company. Here's our conversation.

Jordan, you were exposed to the medical device business for most of your life. please tell me, uh, what it was like to be the daughter of a spinal implant and pain management distributor.

[00:01:48] Jordan Griffin: My dad is an independent distributor for spinal implants in Denver, so I've grown up in this industry for a very long time. He's going to dinners. He's in cases all day. And so I didn't really get a inkling for it until I was in probably later years of high school, and then college. He was always talking to people always interacting with people going on dinner fun things and trips And then I started to get into it probably my freshman year and then did it through college with one of his partners. So basically what I was doing was just helping them out.

I was loading pans and dropping them off at hospitals, doing some case coverage and just trying to be of assistance. And that's where I really fell in love with it. I am a very outgoing people, person and I just loved the atmosphere, helping people as well as having that social aspect to it.

[00:02:40] Pat Kothe: some people, embrace what their parents do and say, I want to do that. Some people run away from it. point did you start to really embrace it? Because I imagine the dinners and everything were at times when you may have had things going on at school and dad couldn't be there. So, there was some of that there as well, right?

[00:03:01] Jordan Griffin: Absolutely. So I think I started to embrace it more when, his flexibility came into picture a little bit. He was say, in cases, mostly Tuesdays, Wednesdays, but then he was doing other, at home stuff Thursday and Friday, and, had more flexibility in traveling and stuff like that and living a full life.

I worked a little bit in an orthopedic clinic doing kind of more of that nine to five, and I figured out really quickly that I wasn't built for it. I love being up, moving around, going to different places, being in the car and having a million things to do. It's just the way I run, even if sometimes it gets tiring, that's just the way my mind is wired.

[00:03:44] Pat Kothe: So you started, as you said, running trays and doing things, for your dad. Tell me a little bit about what you learned. about the business that was different than what you thought it was,not being embedded within it.

[00:03:58] Jordan Griffin: I was young and naive and I was like, oh, it's all about just, case coverage and bringing the implants to the case and bringing the pans and make sure everything was in order and it's so deeply embedded now into the type of person you are how well you get along with people how well you're able to spin a conversation and spin it into the light of hey I have something that I can do for you and I'd be happy to show you I'd be happy to sell you something or have you try something, as well as just being, like I said, like more of that people person.

If you can sit there and have a conversation with just about anyone and kind of spin it in a way that is either business minded or more friendly minded, you're going to do well in this kind of industry. Being able to make friends and connections I feel has really driven me to be better, in these types of positions because I love talking to people, I love being friends with people, I love learning about people's lives and it takes a lot of people skills, which I didn't really realize from the get go. Catering your conversation and being interested in people and trying your best to just make someone's life easier or better. it's very fulfilling.

[00:05:09] Pat Kothe: Part of it, it also is technical skill. so with the particular spinal implants that's being in surgery, that's, being there, with instruments, with, technique, different technique, suggestions, answering questions. so what about, uh, the training? tell me a little bit about how you, how you approach the training from a distributor standpoint, to learn surgical skills.

[00:05:37] Jordan Griffin: It was a lot of it mixed together and then it came out great in the end. It was a lot of reaching out to the companies that we had represented at the time and seeing if I can get, time on their training modules with their product. As well as just watching cases and learning from the people around you. Learning from experience in this industry is crucial. I learned that from a very young age. People have so much knowledge to give you and if you just sit down and listen and then go home and take notes on what you have talked about, it's easier to then turn around the next day and realize how that looks. I'm more of a person that needs like a one, two, three, four step.

So when I was planning for cases I always go through exactly what the doc's going to do, and study his technique. Every neurosurgeon, if they're orthopedic or not, will do things a little bit differently, especially in the spine world. And so if you can map out exactly the steps of they're gonna do a laminectomy first, they're gonna obviously use this, and this, then that was easier for me to make sure I had all the right instruments, all the right implants, and just kind of studying. Studying that doctor, studying the other reps, and seeing what they do. There's a lot of weird tips and tricks in this field that you catch on pretty quickly and then things start to become easier.

[00:06:55] Pat Kothe: So who's your inside person when you're doing that learning? Because just standing in, in the OR, you could pick some things up, but you also need to have somebody telling you what's going on and helping you teach. So who's your inside person,that aids you in that?

[00:07:12] Jordan Griffin: It's honestly a little bit of everyone. so for an independent distributor side, it's the person that you're with, the person that you're covering cases with, as well as I had the luxury and my dad was sitting at home, so I could go home and ask him a ton of questions about what was going on, and he was happy to run through it with me and really try to slow it down to make it where I could understand where it would work in my brain. direct does a little different where they build the foundation 1st, and then you cover cases with people. and then that's how you learn that way. But I also ask doctors. Doctors, 9 times out of 10 would love to show you and tell you why they're doing what they're doing because at the end of the day, they went through 12 plus years of schooling for this and they're one of the smartest humans and they love teaching people. So sometimes if a doc does something that I haven't really seen before, I'll just ask him and be like, Hey, is that something that you usually do? could I ask like, why you do that? Obviously being respectful and everything like that, but. It's really fun to learn from a doctor's perspective why they do what they do and see what their kind of method of the madness is.

[00:08:18] Pat Kothe: I've heard many sales reps say, to clinicians, teach me like I'm a resident. can you please teach me like I'm a resident? Take it from step one all the way through and then you're getting that full why, not only how, but the why. so as you're picking this up, as you said, a direct employee is going to have, knowledge built upon knowledge, but when you're in a distributor, it's not quite that way because you've got multiple product lines, you're not inside that company. You're going to be picking up things different. what was most challenging about learning that way?

[00:08:58] Jordan Griffin: It was challenging, because I'm a little bit of a type A personality, so I love the like solid training program. I love the. course that's super, super hard and really teaches you everything you need to know. independent distributorships are more, you learn so much on experience, which also taught me great things because then I had that more of that keen eye to watch out for things that are super small, but also would play a huge factor in being a great rep.

I think it's awesome if you're able to do a little bit of both, and try both sides. Both sides obviously have pros and cons to them. but being from an independent distributor side, it is challenging because you have, say, 6 different product lines from 6 different companies, and it's just about studying all of those companies are more than willing, to send out training modules and marketing materials and stuff like that. And I think it gets put more on the independent distributor side of, you need to take the initiative to learn that stuff, learn the ins and outs of it, because if a doctor doesn't like it, then you have the availability to switch to a different company, which is also amazing and a super good selling point.

[00:10:11] Pat Kothe: So out of those six or ten companies, however many that you're dealing with, I'm sure some of them had very good, training programs for distributors and some not so good. I'm not going to ask you to tell me which companies had the good ones, but of the good ones, what was it that they did particularly well?

[00:10:34] Jordan Griffin: some of those companies that did really well were the ones that first provided you with some type of online platform of watching videos and reading stuff to really just get the technical aspects of their product, how they're used and stuff like that. And then there was a company that would send out a direct rep or have you meet with a direct rep and, they would go through it as well with someone like me.

It was. I was more of an associate, so I didn't do a ton of training. I was more of like a helping hand. but for someone like my dad and his coworkers, they obviously know tons more of information about these companies and really strive to know everything about them. so it was more put on them at the end of the day after cases and stuff like that, that my dad was sitting on the computer and he was going through his training modules. He was on the phone with the regional manager or whoever talking, asking questions, taking notes, stuff like that. And especially he's such a seasoned person in the industry that he knows what it takes to learn and make sure that he's adequate in his product descriptions and everything.

[00:11:40] Pat Kothe: So as an associate rep, as you said, you're not in the case by yourself, all the time. You may be occasionally in the case by yourself. What was that like when you didn't have complete knowledge, but you were in that case by yourself?

[00:11:59] Jordan Griffin: I was praying to God nothing went wrong. II was sitting there praying to God that nothing went wrong and... some of the docs that we, even if I was in the case for an hour by myself or something like that, most of them knew our product very well. They had been working with my dad or his partner for years. So, I was banking on the idea that he wouldn't look up and ask me a question and he would occasionally just because he was a jokester are kind of guy, but I was just sitting there paying attention as best as I possibly could and helping wherever I could. If that was the scrub tech or the circulating nurse, and yeah, just making sure that nothing went wrong because there's something did.

Oh, no.

[00:12:39] Pat Kothe: Have you had the occasion to have something go wrong and you didn't know the answer?

[00:12:44] Jordan Griffin: Oh, absolutely. I think it happens to every single rep. I don't think I can think of like a specific time, but there's always going to be that day where you're just a little off. Your brain is somewhere else and you tell a doctor how to use a product wrong or you do something so simple. I'm always the person that will realize what had happened probably 10 minutes after it's happened and then I'll sit down the dock and be like, hey, I am I'm so sorry. I was off my game X, Y, and Z. And if you're just upfront and honest, it's usually going to work out a lot better because. Like I said before, these people are incredibly smart.

You're not going to outsmart them, and they probably know at the end of the day what happened and whose fault or whose fault it technically is. when it has happened to me, I always just turn around and apologize and say, it'll never happen again.

[00:13:35] Pat Kothe: Yeah, I think, a couple of things there. First of all, if you're not an experienced rep, Prep them, say, Hey,I'm going through my education. There may be some questions that I absolutely know. And there's going to be some questions that I don't know. If you, if you ask me a question and I'm not a hundred percent sure, I'm going to tell you, I'm not a hundred percent sure.

You're setting yourself up for success that way, because the worst thing you can do is, you're setting yourself up for failure. Try and answer a question that you don't know. Because there's a patient on the table.

[00:14:09] Jordan Griffin: And that, at the end of the day, that's the most important. And actually, the company that I work for now taught me that too. It's just, if you don't know it, that's okay. you're not going to know everything at the end of the day, and if you sit there and you're just, again, upfront and honest and say, Hey, I'm, I will check on that as soon as we're out of this case, or as soon as we have a second, I'll text someone that does know that and I will figure it out for you.

[00:14:32] Pat Kothe: Yeah, and I've been in, in an office. I was running a marketing department in the office and the phone rings and it's somebody that's in surgery with a surgeon saying they have a question here. I can't answer it. Can you answer this? the patient's on the table. Bang. You're right. You're right there.

[00:14:50] Jordan Griffin: So you're able to find people that have the answers. Make sure that you know, who it, who it's supposed to be that has the answers, that has, has that backup and you can serve your customers,that way. Speed dial.

[00:15:04] Pat Kothe: Yeah. So at, at some point in time you decided, that, you wanted to do something else, other than working with your dad.

So what was that all about? What, what were you thinking at that point where you moved out of, out of your dad's distributorship?

[00:15:19] Jordan Griffin: It was. Such a good experience. I was surrounded by the best people. but I sat back on myself and I was like, Hey, you have a direct line into this industry and more of a coming from a pride standpoint, I wanted to make sure I could cut my teeth in this industry without having the help of my dad. I know I had the experience from him and all of that kind of stuff, so my resume was awesome, but I wanted to make sure that I could work under someone else and work for more of a corporate company. I had a lot of dreams and aspirations. Once I finally graduated college and was out in the world, I wanted to cut my own teeth and make sure that I still had the personality and the brain to make it in this field, because it is tough.

[00:16:01] Pat Kothe: you started to look for other opportunities. What was that like? How did you do it?

[00:16:07] Jordan Griffin: My, go to thing to say is interviews are great experience and great, things to just get into. So I applied for everything. I applied for associate, spine reps. I applied for regular spine reps. I applied for, total joint, like the whole nine yards. I just wanted to get somewhere into it.

It was going to be nice if it was some bigger company that I could move up in, but I just started applying and then interview after interview and tried to stay in Colorado. But, When I was just throwing out all the resumes, cover letters and stuff, I had a recruiter reach out to me, set up an interview and went from there.

[00:16:48] Pat Kothe: what's the process like? Uh, what was the process like? you interviewed several different, companies. One interview, five interviews, eight interviews, how many people? What's the process look like today?

[00:17:00] Jordan Griffin: So honestly, it depends on every single company and where you're at. With a metropolitan city, obviously you're going to have more interviews because they have more candidates. For a bigger, medical device company, I did, I think the most I did was six interviews. And I had a personality test as well. And then I had other interviews where they had offered me a job after an interview with the direct manager and the regional. It honestly differs a lot and I think it differs on the position you're looking at the place that you're looking at and your experience.

[00:17:37] Pat Kothe: Do you have any, interesting interview stories, people asking you strange questions or asking you to sell a pencil or, any, things that you found interesting?

[00:17:46] Jordan Griffin: Yeah, absolutely. So a very large medical device company I ended up interviewing with. And after, oh, my gosh, I met with so many people on that interview. I met with, the direct manager, the regional, HR, the whole nine yards and everyone had told me that the interviews went great. I was really excited because I had worked with this company previously. Then I ended up failing the personality test. So the last part of that interview was a personality test and I am not sure how you fail a personality test if I'm being honest, but they do a personality test to make sure you fit into the ideals of the rest of the company, and way or another, I did not fit into the ideals and I, still to this day, I would love to know my results, but they were like, I'm really sorry. We're just done with the interview process. You didn't fit our personality test. And I was like, does that mean I failed a personality test? And they're like, unfortunately, yes.

And I thought that was very interesting.

[00:18:45] Pat Kothe: It is, it is really interesting, um, When you have tests like that and interpreting those tests and, having criteria based on those tests. There is some science involved with that. certain personalities, uh, may have a greater propensity or higher probability of success. But you can have success in a lot of different ways.

And I've always found those hard and fast rules to be, um, Less than ideal or less than useful because you're taking a lot of people who are going to be successful on their own with their own personality. They know themselves,and they know how to get things done. It may be different than what their quote unquote ideal personality looks like.

But like I said, you can be successful in a lot of different ways.

[00:19:35] Jordan Griffin: Yeah, no question.

[00:19:38] Pat Kothe: Unfortunately that's something that, that some companies do, and sometimes you get bounced out for things that you don't understand, but it's like sales, isn't it? some sales situations you get bounced out and told no. And it doesn't make any sense to you, but that's kind of the game.

I've always said that, if you interview too much, you get good at interviewing, and that's not necessarily a good thing. Did you feel like you were interviewing too much? Did you feel yourself getting better at interviewing?

[00:20:08] Jordan Griffin: I did feel that I got better at interviewing, but I think it was a good thing. I totally get where you're coming from, of like, you know how to answer those questions now. Um, but it honestly just made me more confident. I was fresh out of college. I was, 22 years old and it was hard for me to talk to people that I didn't know and tell them everything about my life and why they should hire me over a 15 minute phone call. So the one thing that I will say is that interviews made me be able to sell myself a little bit more and be more confident in what I was saying and what I would be providing to that company and providing to the table.

[00:20:47] Pat Kothe: So tell me a little bit about the interviewers. what did you learn through the process about the people who are asking the questions?

[00:20:55] Jordan Griffin: It ranged a little bit, company to company. It was a little bit different, but there were companies that you could tell that they were more focused on what you were going to do in a sales aspect of them. Um, which is totally fine. Cause a lot of companies are going to do that. They want to make money. Everyone does. Um, but then I also had interview people call me and they were more interested in both aspects of who I was as a person, how was I going to function on a team with someone as well as what I was going to be able to bring to the table as a sales quota and all of that good stuff.

[00:21:28] Pat Kothe: So they have different criteria, they have different, skills that they want to assess during that process based on what the position is. So you may not have known exactly what the position was, but as you're interviewing, you're getting a better idea what they value.

[00:21:45] Jordan Griffin: Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:21:48] Pat Kothe: Could you also tell the personality of the person asking the questions?

[00:21:52] Jordan Griffin: Yeah. I think with doing a bunch of interviews, being around this world for a while, it's easier now for me to sit and talk to someone and get that like good vibe almost from them. And so that was really great when you would run into interviewing people that could just sit there and have a conversation with you, because they're feeling you out as much as you're feeling them out. And if you're comfy and you fit the job description and stuff like that, it's easy. Because you're like, wow, I can get along with this team. The company seems like they have great values and they value the people that actually work for them.

Rather than just the number that they're going to bring in at the end of the year. so that's something that I really looked for as well. And that was something that my dad had told me. He was like, you want to be hired by someone that at the end of the day that you like, that you want to work for, that you want to work hard for, because it makes your job a lot easier. And it makes it a lot more enjoyable.

[00:22:46] Pat Kothe: There's many different interviewing strategies, but one strategy is a stress interview and, see how somebody does it. another strategy is, be the friend. And, you want to make that person very comfortable because you want them to let their guard down and tell you things that they normally wouldn't tell you.

So, that is also something to keep in mind as you're having that conversation is, what exactly are, are you sharing? Is it appropriate? I like that strategy and I like it because you're getting the real person. And if you're guarded in your interview and you're not telling them exactly who you are and what's important to you, they're going to find out. If you hire them, they're going to find out anyways. So it really becomes, is it a good fit between you and that person, and if somebody is a jerk in an interview, you're not going to want to work for them anyways.

[00:23:32] Jordan Griffin: Exactly. You know that your life is not going to be very fun after that.

[00:23:36] Pat Kothe: So you, you, uh, you end up, uh, landing in a position with an excellent company. Uh, so tell me a little bit about what, what you're doing now.

[00:23:47] Jordan Griffin: I now work for Boston Scientific as a clinical specialist for their neuromodulation team. it's been absolutely fantastic. I love this company to absolute death.

The people around me are fantastic. Now that I'm in Wyoming, things are different than when I worked medical device in more of a metropolitan city. but I really can't complain. It's been amazing. I've been here for, it's actually been a year now. This month will be a year. So far, so good. And hopefully we'll continue on.

[00:24:17] Pat Kothe: So moving from, as you said,an urban area to, to a non or very non urban area is a big change, not only for, your life, but also medicine is practice a little bit different in, in more rural areas. So what were some of the, the big changes that you saw from a medical standpoint, from, the hustle of, of an urban area to a little bit more relaxed

[00:24:44] Jordan Griffin: the rural medicine world is definitely different. A lot of doctors travel a lot more than they would in a metropolitan city. So they're covering multiple cities, practicing medicine there. This can, it depends on the doctor's life, but it can be great or it can be a downfall.

The medicine is a lot more personalized because there's just not as big as a population in Wyoming. There's still a ton of doctors here, but it's just not as big. You get more of a personalized experience. Some of these doctors that I work with, they are just salt of the earth. They are the nicest human beings. They are here purely because they love this state and they love the life that they live. And it's just an added bonus that they get to treat people and help people.

[00:25:26] Pat Kothe: the products that you're representing, tell me a little bit about the patient need, what the patient is going through, and what your product delivers.

[00:25:36] Jordan Griffin: We focus on chronic pain. We focus on patients that have gone through every single outlet trying to, cope with their chronic pain, help it in any way. And we're kind of end of the line. Uh, we do spinal cord stimulation. Which is something that gets implanted in your epidural space and then blocks the neural activity or neural indicators from going to your brain that you have pain going on.

Basically what happens is they go through a trial period where they try the system and at least, hopefully 50 percent or more of their pain is reduced. That's considered a successful trial. And then from there they go for permanent implant where they get, uh, leads permanently placed in their epidural space.

It's usually thoracic spine, depending on their pain pattern. And then they get a little battery about the size of an Oreo cookie and they have a remote to it and they turn on stimulation, which is kind of, it's like a tens unit on steroids.

So I just focus on patients that have failed back surgeries. They've had radial ablation. They've had injections. They've had everything to manage chronic pain, and they can't figure anything else out. We focus 100 percent onnerve pain.

I have a lot more patient interaction than I do for spinal implants. so I'm there with them all throughout the trial. I'm then waiting for them to get permanently implanted. They're setting up reprogrammings with me, the whole nine yards. You just have more of a relationship with the patient. And it's really great because you can help the doctor and more create a team aspect to help this patient the best that we possibly can.

[00:27:15] Pat Kothe: Yeah, it's different than a lot of medical devices. Medical devices, a lot of them are, you're talking to the clinician, and you're talking to the hospital administrators, supply chain people and that's your call point. And the patient may be on the table, but you're really not, talking to the patient, not interacting, not educating the patient.

Your business is different, in that, you do have that patient interaction. So in dealing with patients and clinicians, tell me a little bit about how that works. Are you talking to the patient as a independent company, are you talking to them as an extension of the clinician's team? How are you, How are you talking to the patients?

[00:28:02] Jordan Griffin: I really try to talk to them in more of an aspect of, I'm an extension of the office. I'm the extension of a doctor, just to make them feel that they have, which they do, they have a more of a patient care team. Um, Boston provides fantastic resources for patients. we have a patient education team.

We have a, call line that they can call if they have trouble with their device, as well as they have our personal phone numbers, and obviously doctor's offices and stuff like that. I become more of a call point for those patients because I'm not a doctor. I don't have that type of schooling. and I think it's helpful to have someone that they can talk to and say, hey, this is going on and I can turn around and be like, let me relay that to the doctor, see what he says and it just acts, as I'm an advocate a little bit and it makes them feel better, as well as I aid in doing all of the reprogramming and making sure the system works as well as it possibly can for that patient.

[00:29:02] Pat Kothe: So who works on your Boston Scientific team within your division?

[00:29:07] Jordan Griffin: For Wyoming, we had just hired another clinical specialist, which is the position I'm in. And then we have a territory manager, and then above that, we have a regional business director, which she covers most of the West.

[00:29:21] Pat Kothe: And what are the, what is your role as opposed to the territory manager?

[00:29:26] Jordan Griffin: So the territory manager would do more of the Pricing and the business aspect that he still does all of the case coverage with us all of the reprogramming with us just because this is a rural territory. But he handles more of the contracting more of, I said, the business background.

[00:29:44] Pat Kothe: There's a couple of different ways that clinical specialists, uh, have been used historically within medical device. And one is just staying on the clinical track and being a clinical specialist. And other times it's an entry into the sales territory manager, sales track.

How is how are you viewing it? Do you want to stay clinical? Do you want to move into sales? What's that look like?

[00:30:06] Jordan Griffin: For right now, I love being a clinical specialist, um, because this is more of a rural territory, I do a little bit of both, so I'm obviously more clinically minded, but then I also do have some sales stuff going on. Um, Boston does a very good job from kind of the get go of. Hey, which kind of route do you want to take?

Cause there's also things that you can do as a clinical specialist to up your clinical specialist skills. but then if you want to go more sales minded, then they are totally open to getting you in different training programs, getting you in front of different people to prepare you for that territory manager role. At the moment, just cause I am so young and I do love what I do, I plan on staying as a clinical specialist for at least a couple of years.

[00:30:51] Pat Kothe: That's fantastic. And Boston does such a nice job of exposing people to different tracks. There's a lot of different ways that you can go. just make sure that you're taking advantage of all of those things that they're offering. Because just as you learned in college, there's, jobs that you like and jobs that you don't like, and jobs that you like better.

[00:31:13] Jordan Griffin: absolutely.

[00:31:14] Pat Kothe: So, so sometimes in our, in our careers, you know, we, we, uh, can, can take advantage of some of these things to discover, is that the direction I want to go or not? Because 10 years from now, you probably are not going to be doing what you're doing today. Um, how do you, how do you, how do you learn, you know, what, what's going to be best for you?

[00:31:35] Jordan Griffin: Exactly. Yeah. Learn by experience.

[00:31:38] Pat Kothe: so you are, doing some things, you've talked about your dad earlier about integrating a business into a life and you're kind of doing that as well because you've got patient stuff on patient schedule, on doctor's schedule, a lot of driving in your territory. So how do you fit your life into your job?

[00:32:01] Jordan Griffin: It's a balancing scale and it's never going to be quite balanced out. and there's going to be months where you, like we had talked about before, I was on the road Monday through Friday, I think I drove 20 hours or something crazy that week and that wasn't even with case coverage. Um, but then there's some weeks that you don't have really that many cases and I'm say on my computer for a couple of hours the day and then I'm going to the gym or I'm going to play golf or whatever it is. So that's something that's lovely about this position is that there are going to be the busy weeks. There are going to be the busy months, but there's also going to be the months where it's a little bit more lax. You catch up on all the emails and you have some time to enjoy it to yourself or with your family, friends, significant others, all that. So it's tough, especially as someone that's young in this field, you just want to do as much as you possibly can.

And I think it's learning by trial and error of how much you can take on and how much you sit there and you're like, Hey, I'm not burned out. I can keep going. Or you're like, okay, I need to take a step back. I think it's more of checking in with yourself and checking in with your team. My manager does a fantastic job of sitting there and he's Hey, if you're burned out, we can sit down and talk about it.

We'll plan out the next couple of weeks where you take a step back and then we'll get your ramp back up in a couple of weeks when you're feeling up to it. So I think it's about having a great manager, having a great support system, having a boyfriend at home that's fantastic with that. And having people cater to you a little bit when you are working really hard.

And then stepping off the gas for a little bit and going back on it in a couple of weeks.

[00:33:35] Pat Kothe: the concept of work life balance is a concept. It's,it's never balanced. It's always, And, you need to have a mixed into your life, and that's why your life gets mixed into work, and works, get, gets mixed into your life. I'm sure if you get a call from a patient, their battery is something going on, or something's happening, and it's, 9 o'clock at night, well that's, that's important, and you know that, that needs, needs to be, needs to be dealt with.

So, you gotta move your life a little bit to the side, but there's also times where, you know, like you said, you've got a mental health issue,you need a mental health break, or you Take a kid to a dentist appointment or something like that. I mean, you, you can move, you can move your work schedule, as well.

So it's never quite balanced. Its integration.

[00:34:21] Jordan Griffin: Exactly. And yeah, choosing that 9 o'clock call. I'll always take it and I will make sure that patient's doing well. But say I get a text about some random question at 9 p. m. I'm probably going to wait until 8 a. m. the next day or 7 a. m. to text them back. Just to kind of give that boundary a little bit.

And I'm always very clear and honest with patients. hey, if it's something emergent, just call me. I will answer if it's past working hours or quote unquote working hours. There's not really working hours for this industry, but, um, but if it's not something emergent, give me a text and I'll return it as soon as I can.

[00:34:53] Pat Kothe: I'm not gonna ask you to speak for your generation, but uh, you are on the, uh, younger side of things and, there's been a lot talked about, written about with the different. generational groups and what's important to them.

in your conversations with your peers, what, how does, how does medical device fit into, you know, the, the changing lifestyle and the changing expectations that younger people have for their careers?

[00:35:28] Jordan Griffin: This industry isn't gonna always have the nine to five work balance that a lot of industries have. You can find positions in this industry that have that. But, to me, it's. I always like to say, put the work in now and rest later. that's just how my brain is wired.

I'm not so much of the type of person that's going to be, well, I need to have every single weekend off. some weekends I'm working, some weekends I'm not. And I'm fine with that flexibility. I'm fine with having days that I can hang out at home, but then also weeks where I'm not home all week. Um, so I think it really comes to the personality and what you're looking for with this industry. you're on call a lot. You're answering emails and texts. There's always constantly something that you can be doing. And if you like that atmosphere, then you'll love this industry. If you don't like that atmosphere, and you need something different, that's more schedulized, then this might not be the best place to be. But that's kind of how I look at it. I know a lot of people in my generation probably look at it a little differently, but that's, what's worked for me over the years. And that's probably what I'll stick to for a while.

[00:36:40] Pat Kothe: So I'm sure your friends that graduated with you a few years back are spread across a lot of different industries. What have you heard back from them in terms of industry, you know, different industries that, uh, that they've gone into and, and, how does that compare with where you're at?

[00:36:59] Jordan Griffin: A lot of my friends went a hundred different directions, like you said, and I haven't really heard of many people that like hate the position that they're in. I think we are going through, like a restructuring kind of deal in the job market with now being able to work remote, being more flexible on hours, sometimes trying to be more accommodating.

But I have friends in the medical field being a nurse. I have friends that are more in the financial sector, marketing sector and. I think it's great now because, employers don't necessarily look at someone's age. They look at everything. They look at them as a person. They look at them as their education, what they did in high school, stuff like that.

And I think there's a lot of great companies out there nowadays that you can get started with. And then you can work your way from the bottom all the way to the top and be peachy keen at the end of the day.

[00:37:55] Pat Kothe: So you work for a very large company right now, and there's a whole bunch of people that, that work in that company with a lot of different, responsibilities. Who do you, who do you interface with, um, in your normal day to day?

[00:38:11] Jordan Griffin: My manager is someone I talk to probably four times a day, at least once, but we talk all the time. And then now that we have hired another clinical specialist, I'll talk to her probably multiple times a day. I am a big advocate for just communication, even if it's a simple text, just letting everyone know what's going on.

Then I think a team runs more smoothly, a company runs more smoothly. So that's usually who I'm chatting with. Most of the time.

[00:38:37] Pat Kothe: Your manager's manager, your manager's manager, marketing, anybody else? Or is it primarily just your team?

[00:38:46] Jordan Griffin: I obviously talk to my team a lot, but I also, it depends on the week, but I'm usually reaching out to either marketing inventory, um, helping with reimbursement stuff. It's great because 9 times out of 10, if you have a question that for me, it's mostly above my pay grade, I can reach out to a manager or a regional manager. And I'm going to say, hey, I need this question asked. Who do I go to? They send me an email or they send a team that I can reach out to. So I'm, I would say on the normal week, I am communicating with a lot of teams outside of my direct team, which is fantastic because with Boston, they have a team or a designated person to help you with all of the everyday things that come along with this job.

[00:39:35] Pat Kothe: So you entered the industry in 2020?

[00:39:40] Jordan Griffin: Yes, 2019, 2020.

[00:39:43] Pat Kothe: We all know what happened in 2020.

[00:39:46] Jordan Griffin: Yes,

[00:39:47] Pat Kothe: So you entered, you enter, entered at a, at a unusual time and now things have, things have opened up. Um, so. Face to face, you didn't have that opportunity to learn face to face other than being in in EOR early on and now there's some face to face activities and training and things like that so when you moved over to Boston was it face to face training at that point or was it still remote stuff?

[00:40:15] Jordan Griffin: it was both. so we did a couple weeks face to face, I want to say, and then a couple weeks just like Zoom calls and check in that way.

[00:40:25] Pat Kothe: And we talked about the training, that you received, as a distributor and now the training you received as a direct. Was it, fulfilled a promise that you talked about where it's built one, one brick at a time and, and moved up? Was it, was it a more, normal learning routine for you?

[00:40:46] Jordan Griffin: It was more of a learning routine. I always tell people it was like a accelerated college course. Boston does a fantastic job and they are training team is just amazing. So it was more of a brick by brick and over, I think it was 8 weeks long, by the end of those 8 weeks, I was primed and I was ready to go, and I felt awesome.

[00:41:05] Pat Kothe: So a lot of medical device companies have a lot of veterans in there that have been in the business for a long period of time. What do people of that age not know about younger people coming into the business?

[00:41:21] Jordan Griffin: It's not like they don't know that young people are obviously trying to get into this industry. I think when, um, you and my dad were up and coming, it was more of a networking thing of how to get into this industry. And I think that is still true, but I think it is a little different in, um, with these really large companies, they're looking for kind of certain people. They're looking with a bachelors in X, Y, and Z. They have some experience with sales, but for you guys, I think it was different because if you could show that you could sell something, you could do medical device sales. And now, um, you see a lot of reps that were previous nurses or previous, some type of clinical setting, um, and that's helped them a lot being in the OR and getting that experience early on.

[00:42:09] Pat Kothe: As I said earlier, there's a lot of different ways you can be successful. Someone with a clinical background, I've seen that to be extremely successful. I've also seen it flame out. Salespeople that are good in one industry and move into medical, seen that be extremely successful and flame out. So there's a lot of different ways of doing that, and when you're hiring and you've got a profile of the person that you're looking for, as we talked about earlier, Sometimes that profile is so narrow that you're never going to find that exact person. you have to make compromises along the way, even though this is not exactly what I want, this is what I want.

But, some people are, as you said, some people are, have got a profile that's exactly what they want, and they're going to go out and find it until they get it. It's not to say they're going to be successful in that role, it's just a profile that they're trying to fill.

[00:43:03] Jordan Griffin: No question.

[00:43:05] Pat Kothe: Jordan, thanks so much for, this conversation for,explaining what it's, what it's like at the beginning of the career and, and, uh, experiences with a, uh, distributorship as well as, early in, in, working for a world class, company. Medical device is a great profession.

But I'm sure that you get a lot of people that come to you now that you're in it and say, Hey, Jordan, what's it like to be in medical device? is that something that, that I should look into? And is it something that, is going to be a good career move?

What do you tell him?

[00:43:41] Jordan Griffin: I tell him. Absolutely. I don't know if people realize, I think they're starting to realize now that there's a million different sectors of quote, unquote, medical device. it can be spine. It can be ankle and joint. It can be CPAP machines. There's such a plethora of things and there's so many different ways of looking at it, whether you're more of a clinical setting and you're in the OR, there's also reps that are there out there that don't step foot into an OR, if that's not something that you're interested in.

I think it's great if you like sales, if you like the kind of hustle and bustle of that, I think it's an amazing industry to be in. You run into some of the most amazing people in the world and from patients, doctors, nursing staff, hospital staff, I feel very fulfilled at the end of the day because you're meeting people, you're learning about them, you're gaining even experience and education from them, which always pushes me forward.

So whenever someone asks me, should I do it? I say, absolutely. At least try it. At least work for one of the companies. There's a million medical device, jobs out there and if you know someone in medical device, nine times out of ten, they can help you a lot. But I say go for it. Always and always go for it because I've had an amazing time and I will be here for a while.

[00:45:01] Pat Kothe: Our industry continues to renew itself. As new people enter and learn that this is one of the most rewarding careers. My thanks to Jordan for sharing your thoughts on why it fits with her and her life goals. A few of my takeaways. First the interviewing process. Hiring criteria and profiles are great. And I've used them in the past too. But also I've never met the perfect candidate. So those hiring criteria, although you put them down, they are not hard and fast rules. They have to be things that are guidelines, not hard and fast rules. You will always find the exception. And you will also find that people can be successful in a lot of different ways. The other thing on the hiring processes, remember candidates are interviewing you too. So make sure that you're providing a great environment and it's something that they're going to want to come to because you're not only, interviewing them, but they're, evaluating whether you're going to be a good person to have in their life and then in their career.

The second thing was training programs. And it's different when you are a direct company and training someone versus. Versus when you've got distributors and training them. But remember distributors are representing your product too. And don't you owe it to your customers to train everyone, not just your direct people? There's going to be some limitations with, uh, with distributors. You can't expect a distributor to come. Uh, into your office for that six week course. But what do you have in place to train them? And assure that they're properly trained, given the limitations of a distributor. Make sure that your training program covers both your direct people and your distributors and is quality and, and gives your customers the quality that they deserve.

Finally, many of us are parents. And we know that our kids are impacted by our professions too. So Jordan is a child of a medical device professional, and she noticed a good parts of what herdad's job was, and that's what got her interested in medical device. So, if you believe in what you do, and the career it offers to you, share it with your kids. They may find it's a good path for them too.

Thank you for listening. Make sure you get episodes downloaded to your device automatically by liking or subscribing to the Mastering Medical Device podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Also, please spread the word and tell a friend or two to listen to the Mastering Medical Device podcast. As interviews like today's can help you become a more effective medical device leader. Work hard, be kind.

 
Patrick Kothe
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