We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Emily Cheng. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Emily below.
Hi Emily, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
Travel nursing was the biggest risk I had ever taken, leaving everything I knew and loved for the unknown.
Travel nursing has this unique way of helping you get comfortable with the uncomfortable because we are constantly moving for work (on average of 13 weeks at a time), learning a new hospital system, getting acquainted with new coworkers, work flows, teams, and reestablishing routines in a new place.
I gained a newfound courage and confidence in risk taking that lead me to take an even bigger risk.
Entrepreneurship has now claimed the spot of the biggest risk I’ve ever taken to date.
On my second travel nursing assignment, I was in San Francisco and felt immense isolation wondering where I could find community with other travel nurses/healthcare professionals (we call them “travelers.”) At the time there were only Facebook groups or Instagram profiles to connect with others living this unique lifestyle. I decided that I wanted to change that and create a mobile app so that I could help facilitate connections with the people in this admirable community.
In Fall 2019 after I attended the largest traveling healthcare conference, I became so inspired by this large community of traveling healthcare professionals I met, that I started to do my customer discovery calls. The first call I made was with my now business partner, who is also a travel nurse. We share the desire to revolutionize the traveling healthcare industry and fill the gaps of loneliness in an industry of professionals who live in constant transitions and change to fill short term staffing needs all around the country.
Creating something from scratch in a completely new industry with no prior knowledge, no networks, no connections, has been humbling to say the least. But it has challenged me to grow in ways I probably would never have if it were not for this big risk. I find myself harnessing almost-delirious faith in what we have created. And trusting that when we’re consistent in doing great work that impacts lives, there’s no way that the return won’t be great. We have already impacted thousands of lives, and we intend to impact thousands, hopefully millions more.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I became a travel ICU nurse in 2018 after working 2.5 years as an open heart surgery ICU nurse in New York City. I was going through my first bout of burnout and leaped into travel nursing to give me perspective to figure out if it was bedside nursing that was burning me out or the environment of the hospital systems.
Through travel nursing for 4+ years, I have grown more personally and professionally than I believe I would have in that time as a staff nurse in New York.
Travel nursing has changed my life in every way, and I aspire to help others discover and create the lives of their dreams through travel healthcare and MedVenture App.
MedVenture App unites and empowers traveling healthcare professionals through these key features: Meet People based on their location & interests, Host/Attend meetups & events in their area, Give/Get recommendations on things to do, where to eat & drink, and housing; Read/Rate facility reviews, and access to a marketplace of goods and services that serve our community with discounts.
The pandemic has reinforced that as human beings, we need others and community to thrive. Healthcare professionals have been overlooked, undervalued, and under-respected for generations. Dealing with death, disease, and human suffering on a daily basis in a high-stress environment, outsiders always tell us that they couldn’t imagine doing what we do, but that seldom affords us the opportunity to take care of ourselves and be human too. The power community is being able to relate, lean on, and co-regulate with our colleagues, and recognize that life outside of the important work we do matters too.
We are currently facing The Great Resignation, especially in healthcare. The demands are too great with little to no support. Travel healthcare gives back some of the control over lives since it affords more freedom, flexibility, and finances than a traditional staff position. I believe the trend for traveling healthcare professionals will continue to remain high until there is actual healthcare systemic change. Until then, I intend on continuing to build technology to support traveling healthcare professionals in their journeys. I’m extremely proud to support the people who support everyone else.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Honesty, transparency and open communication. Unfortunately, healthcare professionals have become accustomed to being taken for granted and advantage of, being disrespected, undervalued, and dehumanized. Being in the shoes of our users helps me to understand the complexity of the issues faced in healthcare and travel healthcare and take steps to solving them with knowledge, skills, and experience. I think one of the biggest problems in the bureaucracies of big businesses, corporations, and institutions can be that everything is cryptic and lacks action following the intent. This creates distrust and severs the ability to work towards common goals. I believe our reputation precedes us because we are vocal advocates for our community. We know the pain points like the back of our hand. We can talk the talk, walk the walk AND actively listen to take steps to solving the problems without compromising profits over people.
Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?
Being dedicated to my personal development and building discipline and consistency in habits and routines that help to support my bandwidth, energy, emotions, and reactivity. I feel that the conversations around entrepreneurship and startup fall short when it comes to how it challenges all your deepest conscious & unconscious doubts and insecurities. But when you are going against the grain, taking a huge risk, it is inevitable that these things come up to the surface and test us. I knew this when I started this journey and have been dedicated to learning what serves me and unlearning what does not because ultimately – this helps to set me up or bring me down in my business. If I do not know how to manage my anxiety, stress, reactivity, doubts, insecurities, then those will impact how I make decisions, think through problems, affect my partnership, relationships, energy, and everything else. Focusing on discipline and consistency in my habits and routines have been the pillars in my day to day to manage the expected challenges that come with startup life. When things don’t go as planned, I know how to find the silver lining, pivot, dig deep for grit, trust, observe the emotions and let them go instead of being paralyzed and swayed by them. It had been monumental to my success to be able to self-regulate and I have the innerwork & personal development I have built my entire life to thank for that. I will be on this journey for my entire life. The work is never done and I truly enjoy the process in knowing this work improves every aspect of my life.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.medventureapp.com
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/medventureapp/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/medventurefortravelers
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/medventureapp/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKdG1MWZLzuzGPY0gERQVrA
Image Credits
All photos credit to Akua Lalo https://www.instagram.com/akualalo/