Anna Sullivan, Product Development Engineer at TJO, has been instrumental in advancing our company's product innovation over the past five years.
She has made significant contributions in shaping the future of orthopedics by collaborating closely with the surgeon design team. Anna's leadership and management skills have been valuable assets in multiple areas of TJO, including overseeing TJO's internship program.
We are proud to have her on our team and invite you to learn more about her below.
Since starting college, I knew I wanted to work in medical devices because I wanted to be able to make a positive impact on people's lives and wellbeing. I was very interested in working closely with surgeons and hospitals, but most companies I applied for said that the OR wasn't a place for engineers. TJO was the first company I found that encouraged its engineers to collaborate with surgeons and be in the OR in order to fully understand the user needs of the medical device.
It is extremely rewarding to speak with surgeons and witness their excitement when they see one of their design ideas come to life in a real prototype. I love having the opportunity to take surgeon feedback and use it to create a unique solution for orthopedics.
I hope that as TJO grows and thrives, and that we are able to get involved more with amazing organizations like the Perry Initiative, Pride Ortho, Women In Arthroplasty, the Society of Women Engineers, and others. I think TJO's internal gender diversity puts us in a unique position to encourage future generations to get involved in orthopedics and hopefully increase the overall diversity of the industry.
I have been able to develop my leadership and management skills at TJO by working with surgeon design teams and running TJO's internship program. I have discovered that I love teaching and sharing collaborative ideas with others.
TJO's mission to give back through donating to Operation Walk means a lot to me. The medical device industry was created to provide solutions for patients and surgeons, and I think that goal can get lost sometimes. TJO tries to think about all of it's users from hospitals to surgeons to scrub techs to patients to create the best medical device for everyone, even for those that don't have regular access to joint replacement.
I've flown on NASA's zero-gravity plane, the vomit comet!
Imposter syndrome in the professional world is very real, especially when you're a minority in the industry. TJO strives to create an inclusive and supportive culture, but that's not always true outside of TJO. The orthopedic field is known as the old white man's club. Diversity allows for more creativity and better problem solving and even though it's slowly starting to change, orthopedics still has a lot of room for improvement.
