Why Being a BMET is the Most Rewarding Job in Healthcare | Allison Woolford, Duke Health

Jan 8, 2025

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Biomedical Equipment, Duke University, Allison Woolford, perioperative group, anesthesia machines,
operating room equipment, preventative maintenance, Da Vinci robot, communication skills,
customer service, documentation, networking, women in leadership, biomedical field,
healthcare technology.

SPEAKERS
Chyrill Sandrini, Allison Woolford

Chyrill Sandrini 00:15
Welcome back to another episode of HTM Insider. I’m Chyrill Sandrini with MultiMedical
Systems, your host. And today I’m so excited to have a dear friend of mine that you’re going to
love her as much as I love her. Allison Woolford of Duke University. And today we’re going to
share with you what a day in the life of a biomed looks like. Those of you that are curious about
getting into the field, or maybe those who just want to see how someone else does it. We’ll find
this video in this episode of HTM Insider, intriguing, and we’re hoping that you’ll ask more
questions, because this video is meant to really bring someone in who’s maybe on the fence
and doesn’t really know what a biomed does. So without further ado, I want to introduce you to
my dear friend, Allison. Allison, why don’t you introduce yourself to our listeners?

Allison Woolford 01:03
Hello again. My name is Allison Woolford. I am a Biomedical Equipment specialist at Duke
University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina

Chyrill Sandrini 01:15
And what is your specialty there? Do you have a job assignment there at Duke?

Allison Woolford 01:20
So I am the team lead for the perioperative group. My specialties are the anesthesia machines
and as well as managing the guys who deal with all of the operating room equipment

Chyrill Sandrini 01:37
Awesome. And folks, if you haven’t met Allison, she always has the biggest smile on her face
from the day I met her. Look at her now. She’s still smiling no matter where I go. She’s there.
One time she even traveled so far to watch me teach a class in North Carolina. You were in
Georgia at the time. I was just so honored to have her and her coworkers in my class, and they
drove so far to see me. I do want to mention that I am sporting leadership sweatshirt today and
honor of Allison and all the great leaders in the industry that are women, and they’re
supporting one another and lifting each other up. And Allison is a great example of how you can
be a woman in leadership and htm. So I want to start this video that we’re going to show you,
and I know if you’re listening, you’re not going to see it, so you might want to jump back online
sometime and watch this video if you’re interested in getting into the industry. But we wanted
to look at what is a day in the life of a biomed What does a biomed specialist do from walking in
the front door of the hospital, and I’m going to let Allison narrate this video as we get to see her
live in action at work. Allison, are you ready for this? Yes,

Allison Woolford 02:51
I’m ready.

Chyrill Sandrini 02:52
Okay, let’s roll the video.

02:56
So my day typically starts about 5:30 in the morning. Cases start about 7:00, so we tried to get
in prior to cases, just in case there’s any problems we can get fixed without any delay in the
surgeries in our office because we’re in an OR we actually have special attire that we have to
wear. So at Duke, our scrubs are green, so we have to come in grab a new set of Scrubs every
day. And so in the office, I normally, because I stay cold, I just throw them on top of my regular
clothes, make sure they’re not visible and and then also have different shoes I wear I don’t,
personally, I don’t like wearing the same shoes I wear out of my house in the round of or
because you never know what you might step in, right? Exactly? I always so I would switch over
to the repair shoes, and those shoes always stay at work. Here I’m just fumbling through my
tool bag. I have slush machine that is due for maintenance, due for pm, so just getting my
screwdriver together, had get the filter out, got a vacuum all the dust bunnies out of the filters.
I mean, yes, or is a sterile place, but there’s dust everywhere, so well, make sure to clean the
filter. Hopefully we don’t want to have it mess up the condenser, because the slush machine is
very important in the or here I’m testing one of our PDMS by GE, just to confirm that it is
showing our vitals correctly on it. Here, they’re having issue with SB two, so I have it hooked up
to our simulator via prong, so that we can just make sure the SB two is reading correctly. Here I
am walking out of the office just to show luckily for us, we’re very fortunate. Our office is underneath the operating rooms. So it’s not that far of a trek, since it’s a heavy piece of
equipment is on the wheels. I do have to take the elevator and I just get to walk around.
Normally, there’s other people in the hallway, but fortunately for us, for this time, it was just me
and just get to walk. And I have to make sure my hair is covered. So I have on my scrubs. But
part of also going into OR, all of our hair has to be covered with this our blue boufonts. If we’re
a vendor, they wear red, but for all of us, we wear the blue. And then everybody who is in the
green scrubs with the hair covered, that’s when you’re able to go into the OR which is past this
red line you possibly see on the floor. You have a sign above the door that says restricted
access. So unless you’re gowned up in the green scrubs with the hair covering on you do not go
past that line, because at that point we’re in a somewhat sterile area. So and then this is me
coming back out with another slush machine because we had to get PMs done. So they were
easy for me to get and gather. And also, it’s good thing to get them done first, because they’re
big on for transplant cases. So

Chyrill Sandrini 06:16
Now, those of you not in the healthcare field or a bmet yet, it’s not something you drink out of
in the OR. What is the slush machine?

06:27
Okay, so the slush machine is a big bowl, and it has, it’s hooked up to a condenser. And so the
bowl, so you put a plastic covering on top, and you fill it with sterile water, and it has an
agitator in the middle. So once you put it in, you start agitating, and a bowl starts to cool. It
actually makes slush. And so that slush is then used whenever there is for your organs. When
it’s a transplant case, they can put the organ that’s either coming out of the recipient into that
and it keeps it cool until it’s needed to put into, well, sorry, other way around. So you put the
donor organ goes into the slush machine, and then once it’s ready to go into the recipient then
it’s in a viable state, because you just can’t have it sitting out at room temperature with So,
right? But, yeah, we make fun of it all the time and say we’re making margaritas with it, right?

Chyrill Sandrini 07:22
That’s, I just envisioned, like people thinking they have slushies in the OR,

07:30
Yeah, we do. We always talk about, okay, we’re going, that’s our joke with, Oh, we’re going to
take it. Either for like, Taco Tuesday or margaritas. We’re going to, we need it for our lunch for
today. That’s

Chyrill Sandrini 07:42
perfect. That’s perfect. So tell us how long you’ve been at biomed. Allison, oh,

Allison Woolford 07:48
If I had to say, May, almost little over 15 years. It’s been a while.

Chyrill Sandrini 07:55
Wow. It’s been a while. How did you get into the industry?

Allison Woolford 07:58
Interesting enough. It fell in my lap, as you can speak. So I went to school, I got my bachelor’s
in biology and chemistry because I wanted to be a pediatrician. And in all honesty, I was scared
to take the MCAT. So I graduated, and I was like, I’m trying to find something I can do with this
degree. And I actually did teach ninth grade Earth Science for a little bit. I still enjoy teaching,
but it just wasn’t for me. So I actually worked as a lab technician for the American Red Cross
National Testing Laboratory, and that was fun. That was back when we did a lot of manual
testing. Now it’s all automated, but because it was manual, you had to troubleshoot the
equipment, because one you worked odd hours. My shift was 10am to 6:30 but it’s basically
10am until all the test results came off. So the machine failed, and the three hour test, you’re
staying way past the 6:30 mark. So we would try to troubleshoot the equipment, just to make
sure everything came off and all the results were good, and if whatever patients needed that
blood, then they could get the blood and not be delayed by us. So as I learned the different
analyzers and I spoke to the various vendors, I really got interested in it. And the National
Testing Laboratory actually had an all female biomed team, from Yes, from the technicians to
the manager, to the director. Everybody was female. So there was these seven ladies who
managed all the equipment in this building. And so I was like, I want to be one of them. So they
had an opening, and I came over. And ever since, I’ve been working with some various.
Equipment. So I actually had opportunity to go down to Texas and get trained on the Abbott
prism analyzer, which was this huge analyzer. And then I came back and I trained the other
ladies on how to fix that. And then I decided to move over from being in just one building to
then managing and helping to take care of all the equipment for the region. So anybody who’s
been to a blood drive, all that equipment that’s used at the blood drive, I have helped fix, I
helped set up our major blood drives in the state. I have been there to provide technical
support so that there is no delays, as well as our manufacturing facility that’s here in the actual
Durham. I used to help and fix that equipment as well. So I did that for several years. I think it
was, I think it was at the Red Cross for almost 10, for about 10 years. And then I started, it’s
time to get into the hospital field. I wanted, I wanted to learn something else. I want to learn
something else. So then I moved over, and I actually started my career at UNC Rex healthcare.
And while I was there, I ended up getting my associates and Biomedical Equipment Technology
at Durham Tech, where I also teach as one their adjunct instructors. So my semester…

Chyrill Sandrini 11:17
Smart girl, Allison! I love it.

Allison Woolford 11:21
So my semester with them will start up in January, where I’m teaching a class, and then I have
another class during the summer that I’m teaching. So and then that’s actually when I fell in
love with the operating room. The operating room is my passion. I love the hustle and bustle of
it. I love to lot of people say it’s stressful because you have the surgeons, they’ll yell at you
because you have the patient on the table. But for me, it’s like, it’s a thrill to go in there and be
like, be able to solve it. And they’re all like, Oh, thank you. We appreciate it. And then I just feel
so good and I walk out because I know I have helped not only the staff, but also helped that
patient in advert indirectly, by making sure that equipment is working perfectly.

Chyrill Sandrini 12:02
I think that’s one of the biggest things that people don’t understand. It’s just not about the
equipment, it’s about the people behind the equipment, people using the equipment, and the
patients. So biomeds, if you’re looking into this field, and maybe you’re interested in the
medical field, but maybe you don’t want to go the nursing Doctor route. I mean, take advice
here from Allison and realize that there is other career options where you can affect patient
care in the hospital and beyond. I mean, biomeds are needed everywhere, right? Absolutely. I
mean, every dental office, doctor’s office, Surgery Center.

Allison Woolford 12:39
There’s a group that does the medical equipment on cruise ships.

Chyrill Sandrini 12:42
Yeah, I might just need to be a biomedical cruise ship. I’ll be, I’ll be honest with you, if I can fix
the TV, I tell my husband, I think I’m, I think I’m a biomed at heart.

Allison Woolford 12:55
Yes you are. You absolutely are.

Chyrill Sandrini 12:59
So you’ve been at Duke for how long now?

Allison Woolford 13:03
It’s, um, a little over two years. Two and a half years.

Chyrill Sandrini 13:06
Yeah, Ben Scoggins is great. Love him.

Allison Woolford 13:09
Yes. He is, as he has a sign on his door. He is our hype man.

Chyrill Sandrini 13:16
He is. He is. He’s awesome. Female in htm. Have you found any barriers working in a largely
male dominated field? I mean, you’re very fortunate to work for a Ben there, but women are
coming into it. I find that there’s some hesitation, because I’m a woman that’s majority men in
this field, and it’s changing. But can you speak to that?

Allison Woolford 13:41
At the beginning of my career, yes, it was a little weird, so to speak. When I would go to
different blood drives or I would answer the phone, they would be like, you’re the one here to
fix it, or you’re the one that’s going to help me troubleshoot. And I’m like, Yes, I am. I know my
tools, I can do it. And so after a while, they started to understand, okay, this isn’t just a male
dominated field. And as time has gone on, it has become a lot easier. And there are times
where you do have to prove yourself. A lot of guys like, oh, well, you can’t do that. Oh, that’s
too heavy for you to push or that’s that’s too big for you to understand how to do it. But then I
just use that as my motivation to move forward and to move past it and to even excel in what I
do is it even gotten to the point where I joke with the guys I’m a Oh, you just got hit me. You
just need me here because I have smaller hands and I can fit in the smaller spaces than y’all.

Chyrill Sandrini 14:42
I think for myself, it becomes challenging, like I want to do better and I want to be the best
what what I can do, but the best of the best, and you’re just driven. I believe the same way.

Allison Woolford 14:55
I didn’t care what it was doing, if it’s getting dirty, if it’s our tables leaking hydraulic fluid. I
didn’t care. I’ll sit right there on the floor and fix it. We used to have to my last house we’ve
dealt with the pneumatic tube systems. So there’s times I had to go in there and replace the
motor in the transfer unit. I mean, that’s what we do. I’m going to do it. I’ll be right there with
y’all.

Chyrill Sandrini 15:18
That’s awesome. So in the 15 years that you’ve been in the HTM field, what are some of the
changes that you have seen? I mean, what are some of the things that you’re excited about,
kind of a double ended question there?

Allison Woolford 15:32
Well, I’m excited about the increase in the women that are coming into the field. I used to start
out being like one or two of us, and now even in our shop now, it’s not that many, but I think
there’s six of us amongst the whole Duke system. So it’s great to see more women coming
involved. It’s great to see the women coming through the classes that I teach, and I just hope
to continue to speak out and show other, other girls, young ladies, that this is a viable field, not
just for men, but you can come here and do it too, because there’s a lot of women and young
ladies who love working in a toolbox, who love taking apart things and putting stuff together. What I’ve also noticed is the advancement technologies. We there’s a lot of equipment that is
older and that’s being used in hospitals, because we want to make sure we get the life
expectancy out of it, and it’s not a waste of money. We’re not going to buy new equipment
every two or three years. So some equipment is going to be here for 20 years or 30 years, and
you get to be a chance to actually take it apart and see it, and actually really be able to use the
troubleshooting skills. Besides just, oh, it’s a board. Let me take the board out and put a new
board in. But then it’s just funny to see all the different especially, again, I’m an or person, so I
love going this operating room and watching the Da Vinci robot work, I think that is the coolest
technology. And before it was used on like one to two small, like a small set of cases, but now
they’re using, like the Da Vinci robot on a lot more cases. And from what I’ve been told, it helps
sort of minimize downtime for the patient. So yes, it’s a very expensive piece of equipment, but
it is beneficial, and it’s just amazing to watch.

Chyrill Sandrini 17:27
Yeah, listeners, if you’re curious what a DaVinci looks like, I really encourage you to google it
and watch some of the videos on YouTube on it, it’s just an amazing device that has just
brought so much to the industry. I think it’s amazing the way doctors have adapted to the
DaVinci, you know, how they manipulate during surgery. It’s mind blowing to me. You know, I
guess playing video games might help. Yep, I don’t know if I’d be good at it, but yeah, no, it’s
amazing. So when you get to work, what do you look forward to Allison in the day, besides
running to the or and calls, is there? Is there something else that you look forward to?

Allison Woolford 18:15
I like talking to the people. I, with the Red Cross, I actually got a chance to interact with the
donors at the blood drives, but here my interactions with all the different surgeons and the
nurses and the surgical techs, the room attendants, the front desk staff, so I get to talk to them
and understand what their concerns and complaints, because I like solving problems, and so I
guess that’s why my team loves them having me as A team lead, because they’re like, Oh, you
can sit on the meetings, oh, you can take the phone calls, because I love sitting there and
trying to solve and fix whatever problem is going on. And so by me walking around, and I come
in and I say, Hey, how’s your day going, or how was your weekend? And so I just like building
that relationship. So it ends up feeling like that family that you’ve never had and you had, your
family ends up being like instead of, if you grew up in a like, for me, I just have a sister, so it’s
me and my sister. But here I end up having a family of like, 30, 40, 50 people that I can come
to and talk to, and we can joke about different situations that are going on. So it’s just me, and
the interaction is what really helps me get through today.

Chyrill Sandrini 19:25
And just to add a little bit on that, can you tell someone that’s looking to get in this field how
important communication is and customer service?

Allison Woolford 19:35
Oh, it is. Now, there are some jobs where you can sit at a desk all day and repair pumps for a
third party company, but if you want to sit and be within a hospital setting, you definitely have
to have that customer service skills. You have to know how to talk to people. Sometimes you
have to have tough skin. In because they’re going to sit here and they have somebody
breathing down their neck, down their neck, and now they’re breathing down your neck.
They’re trying to get whatever problem solved corrected. But in the end, we’re all human. We
all there’s sometimes we just come in and just have a bad day, and they don’t mean to be
breathing down your neck. They’re just having a tough time. So the best part is just always
remembering that we don’t know what’s going on someone else’s life, but our communication
with them should always be friendly, always be there to support them. Key big thing is to have
empathy and to realize that we all have a job to do, and we’re all going to do our job to the best
of our abilities and just to be there for people.

Chyrill Sandrini 20:48
Yeah, I think that’s important. You know, when you’re talking about communication and
customer service skills, that’s the outside of what biomeds do, and you’re fixing equipment, but
talk about the documentation on what biomed do and how important it is.

Allison Woolford 21:04
So a lot of people, documentation is like, as someone might say, the root of all evil. So you
have the fun part of something’s broke in front of you. You get to play with the screwdrivers,
ratchet, set hammer every so often. But you also have to do that paperwork side, because that
paperwork side is what will actually save you if there ends up being an incident, if they say
something happens on the device and the patient was harmed by using when they were using
on the patient, that documentation, when you put in your notes to say, Okay, I did this. PM,
these are the steps I followed. I got these steps out of the user manual that’s provided by the
vendor, and everything was documented perfectly fine. That helps to cover you, as well as the
hospital order institute that you’re working for to show well, we’re doing everything that we’re
supposed to be doing. So I get it’s we do have the blame game, but it’s more so you’re covering
yourself to make sure that you done everything right. Because I know, personally, I do not want
to be up on the witness stand at a wrongful death lawsuit, trying to justify what I did and why I
didn’t do that, and be grilled by a lawyer. I’d rather be grilled by a surgeon than by a lawyer.

Chyrill Sandrini 22:29
You go, yeah, exactly, you know. And when we’re talking PMS listeners or preventative
maintenance, and every device has a schedule on a preventative maintenance. It might be
once a year and you just have to an electrical safety check, but it might be twice a year,
especially on life saving devices. So test equipment that you mentioned earlier, you’re using a
testing device that you want to talk about how important testing devices are and making sure
that they’re working accurately, and how that affects your paperwork as well?

Allison Woolford 23:03
Yes, so not just all of the various devices that the hospital staff is going to use. We also have all
of our test equipment that actually gets calibrated annually, and our test equipment is all a
means of having a set variable. So if we want the blood pressure to be 120 over 80, then we
have a standard, which is our test device, and we can set it to 120 over 80. And so when we
hook it up to the device and any other of our other patient monitoring vital signs devices, it
should read 120 over 80, plus and minus, whatever percentage the manufacturer allows per
their instructions or their manuals. So it helps to confirm that yes, this device is working per the
manufacturer. And so then we document whatever test equipment we use in our
documentation to show if someone else comes down further down the line the lawyer wants to
look at it, we can say, well, we tested this vital signs machine. The blood pressure was this
rating, the heart rate was this rating, SP, two was this rating. And these are test equipment that
we use to confirm that everything was set correctly. And here’s our documentation to show that
these are calibrated annually by this third party company. And we’re not just making up these
numbers for everybody,

Chyrill Sandrini 24:28
right? 100% what I want to move to now is a little more fun when you go to work. Let’s talk
about what a bioma does for lunch, the camaraderie, the celebrations, I know you got your
hype man bed stuggins there. Love that guy. If you don’t know Ben, you gotta know Ben. His
dad was gotta know Ben. You gotta know Ben. Um, this talk about the fun side of being in a
biomed shop and and what happens? Oh,

Allison Woolford 24:56
gosh, we we have great camaraderie. Um. Um, especially amongst because we have several
different smaller biomed groups, and they deal with different things. So for me, my team is the
Perry op team I have So myself and four other guys, and we’re in there. Um, I maintained a
diabetes bucket, so I have all the candy and never gets low. I get more candy. Even the
vendors, when they come through, they’re like, Hey, you got any candy in the bucket. So we
develop this great rapport amongst ourselves. And then the vendors that come through, we
sometimes we will all eat lunch together. We have this thing called alpaca Thursday, so we’ll go
alpaca. There’s a restaurant called alpaca. It’s Peruvian. So every so often we’ll gather all
together, especially if it’s not too busy, or might one of us might run out to the run out to the
restaurant, pick up everybody’s order and bring it back, and we just all eat together. We talk
about different things. Sometimes we try not to talk about work as much, but sometimes I’ve
said in our office, it’s like Vegas. I’d rather have you vent and complain in our office than to
vent and complain outside our office, cuz we still have to maintain a sense of responsibility and
professionalism outside our office. But once you walk into that door, if you need to unload
because somebody just was being really rude to you, this is your place, and this is your safe
space to do it if you’re having a rough time at home. Also, this is your place to sit here and to
vent, where everyone my team, is a different age group, different nationalities, so we all have
varying opinions. So we will discuss and honestly talk about anything and everything under the
sun, amongst each other, and then we support each other. I have a big thing. I love birthdays,
so I will decorate the guys desk for their birthdays. But if it’s a main I have a standard Happy
birthday banner. If it’s just like a standard birthday, but if you’re having one of those, like, 40th
or 50th or 60th birthdays, oh, I’m going all out. I am decorate. I’m buying whatever nice, like
flamboyant thing I can find to put at their desk, to hang off the ceiling, and we just have a good
time. And then there’s times I like to bake, and so I just bring in something, some baked good.
I’m like, here, I didn’t want to eat it, but I baked it for y’all, so y’all enjoy it. So you

Chyrill Sandrini 27:37
sound like a great leader. I mean, I try. I love you anyways, like I just, I guess I just would love
to work for you. You know, you just feel like you make that safe, homey type of environment.
And that’s, that’s we want people to know out there, especially the young women that are
joining htm, is that there really is a family, there really is a community. And talk about when we
go to conferences like you’re going to a networking event. Do you ever make a stranger? It’s
awesome, right? Go ahead, share it.

Allison Woolford 28:07
Oh gosh, it. I know. And the funny part is, in all of this, I am actually a nervous person with
meeting new people, really, I do. And I actually have to talk myself up, and I just tell myself that
it’s going to be okay. It’s going to be fun. You never know you’re not everybody’s cup of tea,
but you will find somebody who is your cup who is the cup of tea for you. So I just go out there
and I try to introduce myself. If they don’t want to talk to me, fine. I’ll find somebody else. And
sometimes it just happens to you make connections with people that you really didn’t think
you’ll make connections with. But it’s it’s great, um, especially going to because after as you
attend all the various functions, the first time is always the scariest one. So my first time was in
Atlanta at the MD Expo, and it was all because of Bryant. Bryant introduced himself to me on
LinkedIn, and I was like, Okay, I’m gonna go. So I drove out. And from then, I’ve known Brian
since, I think that was like 2022, and it has been, I mean, before that, but it’s just been a ball
attending all the various other conferences. I think he introduced me to you. So I remember

Chyrill Sandrini 29:24
where we were sitting. I’m glad you said it was Atlanta, because they all kind of go together,
but I could tell you where we were sitting, what we were talking about, and I just loved your
energy, your smile, you know, I knew that we’d be fast friends. And

Allison Woolford 29:38
so we met again. We met again in Orlando, yep, and it was great. And then I and when I was in
Orlando, I really didn’t know anybody there either, because I was still new. But then I met up
with Kim, and I think, oh my gosh, Jen and Michelle. So, and we all went together and went to
Epcot.

Chyrill Sandrini 30:03
There you go. Yeah, we just had your ears on and everything.

Allison Woolford 30:07
I am a huge Disney fan, and I love my ears. So my daughter thinks I’m I do too much with
Disney. And she’s like, Why do you have these two huge Minnie Mouses? I’m like, because I like
them. I am a huge Minnie Mouse fam, but it’s you build these relationships, and over the years,
you build more and more, and again, it’s like another family outside of your work family. You
spend eight hours, or some people work 10 hour days in the hospital with these people. Well,
you build that family, and then when you go these conferences is like a family union all over
again, where you get to see them twice a year, and you get to hang out, chit chat, see how
their kids are doing, see how their family’s doing, as well as we do talk about business so and
then if you go back, and then you go back to work, and if you need something fixed, especially
on the various vendors we talk to, then you’re like, Hey, I know. I know somebody. I got a
connection. Let’s go talk to them

Chyrill Sandrini 31:06
well. And if you’re out there and you’re going to be attending a conference or a mixer, which
are smaller networking, every state has an association, pretty much, and they’re all, if you join,
they’re usually like, 2030, bucks or something to join as a biomed. And everyone you go to your
dinners, included your foods, included there’s education at every single event. And then you
get to network. And I know if you’re in the North Carolina area, yes, you ping. Miss Allison, right
here, absolutely. Take you on the arm and entertain it everybody. And you’ll you’ll realize what
a big family this is, and you’ll notice that we hug a lot. We we miss each other when we’re not
around each other. So I encourage you, if you’re in that North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
any of that region in there, and you need to ask any questions. I know Allison will definitely be
somebody that you can turn to. Yep,

Allison Woolford 32:05
I’m on LinkedIn. You can give me a feel free to find me and add me.

Chyrill Sandrini 32:10
Perfect. Well, this has been so much fun today, talking about the day in life of a biomed and
hopefully encouraging young people everywhere to get into this field, and especially young
women. If you want to check out women in leadership, will they’re also on LinkedIn, you can
find it through Allison or myself, Yes, and we’re here to help and support and we’re not just
saying that. We really mean it. I would like to close every episode Allison with a wow word or
words of wisdom when it comes to your perspective, I want you to give it to us. Girl, what is
your Wow,

Allison Woolford 32:48
my word of wisdom is ask the question. Ask. I, in all honesty, I actually just got dinged we’re
having a function. And they they asked, what does everybody want to eat for lunch? And I
picked a favorite dumpling spot, and everybody’s like, Oh, that’s a little expensive. Well, you
told me that you asked me, I’m going to I’m going to offer my suggestion. So always just ask
the question, even though you might think it’s stupid. There might be someone else there that
has the exact same question, but they’re too scared to ask it, and then it might be an aha
moment for the person you’re asking and they might not have thought about in that manner.
So I try to tell everybody, even all my students and all of our men are mentees that come
through our interns ask whatever question you possibly have, because you never know how it
might surprise the answer might surprise you. 100%

Chyrill Sandrini 33:47
Stay curious and always be willing to learn something new, and you’re not going to learn it or
understand it necessarily if you don’t ask the question. Is the way I look at it. So it’s been such
a pleasure having you on my friend, yes, your face, uh, you’re always such a ball of energy and
smiling all the time. We’re so glad you guys joined us today on another episode of htm. Insider,
you know where to find us. It’s any place where you listen to your favorite podcast, reminder, if
you are a C bet and share with your friends that are certified biomeds that they listen through
tech nation, they receive one CE credit for every episode. And I think Allison will probably be 37
or 38 episodes of HTML. Yeah. So they’re all they’re all up there. We do one, but feel free to
take advantage of that if you’re looking for some CE credits and reach out to Allison. I know
she’s there to help. Yes, to hear your comments, your suggestions, and until then, stay safe,
and I hope you all have happy holidays with friends and family. Thanks again, Allison, for
coming on. Thank you for having

Allison Woolford 34:57
me. You.