Samantha McVeigh

I graduated from Appalachian State University with a B.S. in Cellular/Molecular Biology and a minor in Business. I played 4 years of D-1 college soccer at Appalachian.

I was interested in Medical Sales because it was something that I saw my family members have great success in. My brother works for Gore Technology as an endovascular rep, my cousin works for Medtronic as a spine consultant, and my uncle is a CEO for OrthoSensor. Seeing their great success, I wanted that for myself. I also wanted to be in an industry that gave me challenges and surrounded me with very intelligent and highly motivated people.

I found out about MSC by searching online.

I decided to attend the college after I spoke with some of the graduates who attended the program and said they had great success. Hearing that the program worked for them gave me the confidence I needed to commit.

Once I began training at MSC I felt overwhelmed with all the information I was given that I had no clue about. I really don?t know how anyone could jump into this field without going to MSC because I would have been completely lost. The information I learned at MSC better prepared me not only for interviews, but also things I would face on the job.

The position I was interview for was Reconstruction and Trauma. From training, we spend a lot of time on the total knee replacement. For my interview I was given their surgical technique and was told to study that for a discussion at my interview. Having studied the total knee before is what landed me the job. I knew everything about that procedure and having done the sawbone labs I knew how to assemble the instrumentation. I had to assemble S&N?s instrumentation and answer some questions about the procedures. I knew every answer. If I hadn?t gone to MSC I wouldn?t have been able to answer those questions and would have ultimately blown the interview.

Someone should attend MSC because it really does give you a lot of the information that someone new in the industry needs to know before entering into these interviews. Having that experience gave me something to talk about in every interview and gave me the confidence to have a lot of conversations that I know I wouldn?t have been able to have without it.

I knew straight out of college that this was a path that I wanted to take, and I knew that the challenge I was going to face was a lack of experience. I didn?t try very hard to get into the industry until after completion at MSC. I maybe applied for a few positions and some of the big companies leadership development programs. I had a few interviews, but it wasn?t for positions I really wanted.

I had some fears about attending the school which were mostly if this college would be worth the money. I feared paying out of pocket all the money to go here and it not really help me get a job in the industry. I worried about the credibility mostly.

I started applying after completion of my program on July 19th. It took about 2 weeks to start getting responses for interviews. I interviewed with my divisions in Stryker, Arthrex, and Smith and Nephew. Most of my interviews I got on my own, except for the Smith and Nephew interview. EliteMed contacted me about the Smith and Nephew interview and a week later I went to a single interview. At that interview they said they would be making a decision by the following week. It only took me one interview with Smith and Nephew before they offered me the job. Before that I had been traveling across NC going to multiple interviews. Arthrex had me do 3 interview and 2 ride alongs before they made an offer. I chose Smith and Nephew because I really like my manager, and the area of the territory and the division the job was in.

I am a Recon/Trauma Associate Sales representative. I just started this week and right now my job is to just cover cases and basically be a sponge to absorb as much information as I can.

The most valuable thing that I learned at MSC was the surgical procedures and doing them in the sawbone lab. It has helped me to be able to learn my new products better by understanding how to solve intraoperative challenges and benefit the patient.