Evolving in Healthcare – Details, episodes & analysis

Plenty of capable people learn to lead by copying whoever's already in charge. It works for a while, right up until it leaves you running on someone else's fuel and still not quite yourself.

Ruth Andermatt is a Canadian self-leadership coach who has spent more than two decades working with executives and emerging leaders, most of them introverts. She was often the only woman in the room, and she has thought hard about what it costs to keep conforming to a style that was never going to fit.

If you're in a non-titled role wishing you had more influence, or eyeing a step into management because it looks like the only way to have impact, this conversation is for you. Ruth draws a clean line between managing people and leading them, and she begins where most leadership advice skips ahead: how you lead yourself. Expect plenty on holding your ground without conforming, guiding the people above you, and what to do when the version of success you've been chasing quietly stops fitting.

• Why conforming to get into leadership tends to run out of road
• The difference between managing people and actually leading them
• Leading the people above you, not only the ones who report to you
• What self-leadership asks of you long before any title arrives
• The cost of staying in survival mode and calling it dedication

Timestamps

01:15 Being the only woman in the room and the pull to conform

05:45 Masculine and feminine leadership, and why most workplaces pick one

08:48 The exhaustion of dancing to someone else's tune just to get hired

13:40 Why a title doesn't make you a leader, and what self-leadership actually means

16:44 Hitting a plateau and shifting your perspective instead of walking away

29:05 The blind spot that holds capable people back, women especially

33:08 Leading the people above you, not just the ones who report to you

41:25 Survival worn as a badge of honour, and the price every choice carries

45:09 Untangling your identity from how you got here and redefining success

55:48 Outgrowing your manager and repositioning without burning the bridge

Ruth Andermatt is a self-leadership coach and consultant and the founder of Andermatt Consulting Experience (A.C.E. Inc) in Canada. A former national-level paddler and UBC graduate, she has coached executives, business owners and emerging leaders for more than twenty years, with a particular focus on women and introverts who lead quietly but effectively. Her view, useful for anyone in a hierarchical field like healthcare, is that leading yourself is the foundation everything else is built on, title or no title.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachruth/
• Website: https://andermattconsulting.com

Career Cliniq Resources

If this conversation has you wondering where your influence and interests actually sit, the StreamAhead Assessment maps your experience across the full spectrum of healthcare work, not just the path you trained for: https://careercliniq.com/streamahead

Connect with Ruth on LinkedIn or Instagram

Bree Murray has never seen a patient. She'll still put "dietitian" on every form she fills in.

She's spent 15 years in professional associations, food industry, health profession regulation, and a job-shared CEO role and has never once questioned whether that makes her a real dietitian. This conversation is for anyone who has.

• Building a dietitian career entirely outside clinical practice
• What personal life seasons reveal about what you actually value
• How a project officer becomes a job-sharing CEO
• The real cost of a portfolio career when you've come from a for-purpose background
• The difference between a career compass and a career plan

Bree Murray is an Australian dietitian with over 15 years of experience spanning professional association work, food industry consulting, health profession regulation, and executive leadership. She currently serves as executive officer for a Council of Deans of Nutrition and Dietetics, supports governance work with self-regulating health professions, and sits on the National Alliance of Self-Regulating Health Professions board. Her career has been built through relationships, referrals, and a consistent willingness to move into unfamiliar territory when the fit is right.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bree-murray-44193528/

If this conversation got you thinking about what's actually guiding your career decisions, the StreamAhead Assessment maps your interests and experience across the full spectrum of healthcare work - not just the path you trained for. 👉 Take the StreamAhead Assessment

What's the moment you realised the shape of your days didn't match what you actually cared about? I'd love to hear it. LinkedIn | Instagram

What You'll Learn From This Episode

Professional Identity & Purpose

• "Am I still a PT if I'm not practicing clinically?" - How Raji separates credentials from identity
• Redefining what impact looks like beyond direct patient care
• Why your clinical background is actually your competitive advantage in health tech

The Real Work of Career Transition

• Why your clinical resume won't work for non-clinical roles (and what to do instead)
• The exact LinkedIn strategies that opened doors for Raji
• How to handle rejection, pay cuts, and the humbling reality of starting over
• The networking approach that gets results without seeming desperate

Turning Challenges Into Fuel

• How Raji transformed workplace discrimination into career clarity
• Managing visa restrictions while building a new professional path
• Why COVID-19 became the catalyst she needed to make her move

Chapters

00:43 Raji Introduction01:34 Starting out & Transitioning into Product Management03:09 Journey from Clinical to Non-Clinical Roles05:49 Navigating Challenges in Healthcare08:43 The Impact of COVID-19 on Healthcare11:14 Building Leadership Skills in Outpatient Care14:11 Work-Life Balance and Career Growth16:34 The Importance of Networking and Mentorship19:10 Overcoming Rejection and Learning from Mistakes21:46 Defining Success Beyond Clinical Roles24:33 The Role of Curiosity in Professional Growth27:16 Finding Belonging in a New Professional Identity29:43 Embracing Change and New Opportunities32:14 The Future of Healthcare and Product ManagementKeywords

Product management, healthcare career transition, digital health, clinical leadership, strategic networking, health tech, work-life balance, professional growth, career evolution, physical therapy

Find Raji on LinkedIn:

Ready to Navigate Your Own Career Evolution?

If this conversation sparked something for you, you're not alone. Many healthcare professionals feel stuck or wonder what else might be possible beyond their current role.

Get Started with Career Cliniq:

• Visit Career Cliniq
• Connect with Ruth on LinkedIn or Instagram

Found value in this episode? The best way to support the show is to share it with a colleague who might need to hear Raji's story. Thank you for listening to Evolving in Healthcare.

What becomes possible when you stop waiting to feel "ready enough"?

Dr. Anum Ali's undergraduate transcript didn't predict where she'd end up. After six years as a crisis counsellor, she wasn't sure graduate schools would take a chance on her. Then a mentor said five words that changed everything: "Your GPA doesn't tell your whole story."

An adult ADHD diagnosis during her master's in clinical mental health counselling reframed years of academic struggle—not as failure, but as her brain working differently. Today, she's built a career that actually leverages how she thinks: VP of Clinical at a health tech startup, university professor, clinical supervisor, private practice therapist, and founder of DigiWell Foundation focused on youth mental health and digital wellness.

Her PhD research on South Asian parents and digital wellness? It grew directly from her childhood experiences with online bullying. The painful parts of her story became the foundation for work that protects the next generation.

Anum's advice: "I think it started out with me saying yes to opportunities and going into the rooms where I wasn't sure if I even belonged."

This conversation is about building careers that work with you instead of against you, reaching out before imposter syndrome says you're qualified, and discovering that your different path might be exactly what positions you to make real impact.

We explore:

• Navigating healthcare as an immigrant and first-generation student

• Confronting mental health stigma in South Asian communities and becoming a voice for change
• What happens when a mentor sees beyond your transcript
• The isolation of feeling different—culturally, academically, and professionally
• Getting an adult ADHD diagnosis and rebuilding your career narrative
• Leaving secure crisis centre work to explore what else is possible
• Saying yes to opportunities and walking into rooms where you're not sure you belong
• Turning painful experiences of bullying and cultural disconnection into meaningful research
• Why empathy is a skill you build over time, not just a personality trait
• Protecting compassion when burnout threatens to erode it

About Dr. Anum Ali, PhD

Dr. Anum Ali is a licensed professional counsellor and clinical mental health researcher working across multiple healthcare sectors. As VP of Clinical at a digital wellness startup, she builds AI-powered parental guidance tools. She teaches master's-level counselling students, provides clinical supervision at a non-profit, maintains a private practice specialising in culturally responsive therapy for South Asian communities, and founded DigiWell Foundation—a Texas non-profit focused on youth mental health and digital wellbeing. Her PhD research examined how South Asian parents navigate adolescent social media use and mental health stigma. She's the first woman from her village in Pakistan to earn a PhD.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alianumtx/
DigiWell Foundation: https://www.digiwellfoundation.org/
TEDx Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfsNvFt--iI

Career Cliniq Resources

Ready to explore what else might be possible? The StreamAhead Assessment helps healthcare professionals discover which work streams align with how you actually work best.

👉 Take the StreamAhead Assessment

What room are you not walking into because you're waiting to feel like you belong there?

Connect with Ruth on LinkedIn or Instagram to continue the conversation.

How does a physical therapist end up shaping Medicare policy for a Fortune 6 company?

Dana Strauss will tell you—it wasn't planned. She stumbled into it by following what made sense and solving problems that frustrated her.

Today, Dana works in a role typically reserved for lawyers and public policy experts, influencing value-based care and Medicare strategy for one of the largest healthcare organizations in America. But her journey there was anything but linear.

Starting in acute care physiotherapy, Dana quickly realised she had a pattern: she'd get bored once she mastered something, and she couldn't ignore things that didn't make sense. Total joint patients in expensive acute rehab when they could go home. Discharge processes serving the system instead of patients.

Instead of accepting it, she started solving it—teaching herself what she needed to know, pitching ideas to leadership, and connecting with people who could help. Each conversation and each problem solved opened unexpected doors.

In this episode, Dana shares her story with remarkable honesty. The serendipitous LinkedIn messages. The mentors who took a chance on her. The startup that nearly broke her. The moment she realised policy work was what she'd been doing on the side of her desk for years.

Dana's journey reveals what becomes possible when you trust yourself enough to follow what genuinely engages you, even without traditional credentials or a prescriptive plan.

We Explore

• How noticing what doesn't make sense became Dana's career compass
• Why she pitched herself into roles that didn't exist—and how she made the business case
• The power of cross-functional committees for meeting people who might vouch for you
• LinkedIn messages that felt scary but changed everything
• Working with the reality that you get bored easily and need intellectual stimulation
• What it's actually like to land in policy work without traditional qualifications

About Dana Strauss

Dana is a senior policy expert at a Fortune 6 company, leading value-based care and Medicare policy strategy for their healthcare delivery division. Starting as an acute care physical therapist, she built her career by solving problems others accepted as unchangeable. Dana specialises in alternative payment models, skilled nursing facility management, and population health—bringing a clinician's perspective to the policy work that shapes how healthcare is delivered across America.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danastraussdpt/
Newsletter: https://www.timelessautonomy.com/subscribe

Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@FutureProofPT

Career Cliniq Resources

Wondering how your clinical expertise could translate into different roles? The StreamAhead Assessment helps health professionals identify their unique value and explore what might make sense for their next move.

Take the StreamAhead Assessment

What's something in your workplace that just doesn't make sense to you?

Join the Conversation

Share your thoughts with Ruth on LinkedIn or Instagram

Episode Summary

What happens when you follow evolving interests rather than the expected career ladder? Nikki Campbell's journey from ICU nursing to palliative care to endometriosis coordination challenges everything we think about "proper" career progression.

Starting in ICU with traditional trajectory plans, Nikki questioned pediatric treatment-at-all-costs approaches, leading her to palliative care. Her own endometriosis experience sparked another pivot - moving states to become an endometriosis nurse coordinator, now pursuing nurse practitioner studies.

Her story reveals how transferable skills matter more than linear progression. Building new models from scratch - "building the plane while flying it" - offers insights for professionals wondering if it's safe to follow evolving interests. Discover why asking better questions matters more than knowing answers, how personal experiences can guide career decisions, and why the "right" path might not exist yet.

Questions We Explore

When Healthcare Values and Practice Collide

• What do you do when you excel at something that no longer aligns with your values?
• How do you navigate the guilt of leaving a "good" healthcare career for something uncertain?
• Can personal health experiences legitimately guide professional decisions?

Breaking Healthcare's Linear Career Myth

• Why do we assume nursing specialties can't translate across completely different areas?

• What happens when your CV doesn't fit the expected healthcare career template?
• How do you prove transferable skills matter more than specialty experience?

Speaking Truth to Healthcare Hierarchy

• What's the cost of asking "why do we do it this way?" as a junior health professional?
• How do you challenge unsafe practices without being labelled a troublemaker?
• Why does healthcare resist change even when everyone knows it's needed?

Timestamps

• 00:41 The unexpected turn from ICU to palliative care
• 06:06 Why Nikki left school at 16 and returned to nursing later
• 10:55 Recognising the pressure of linear career pathways
• 16:30 How transferable skills enabled specialty changes
• 23:37 Building new processes while delivering care
• 29:14 Challenging workplace practices: "Why does it have to be like that?"
• 34:38 Being told "you're not allowed to have an opinion"
• 39:34 The personal factors behind moving states and changing specialties
• 41:33 How motherhood changed her perspective on work
• 45:26 The vision for nurse practitioner practice in endometriosis care
• 49:33 Reaching patients through innovative telehealth delivery
• 57:20 Rapid fire questions and career insights

About Nikki Campbell

Nikki Campbell is an Australian endometriosis nurse coordinator who navigated from ICU nursing to palliative care to women's health. Currently pursuing nurse practitioner studies while working in telehealth delivery, she specialises in supporting endometriosis patients navigate healthcare systems. Her experience includes building new care models, quality improvement initiatives, and advocating for neurodivergent-friendly practices.

Connect with Nikki Campbell

• LinkedIn: Connect with Nikki on LinkedIn
• Instagram: Connect with Nikki on Instagram
• Julia Argyrou Endometriosis Centre

Career Cliniq Resources

Discover which healthcare work streams align with your current interests - and what transferable skills you want to invest in developing to grow your career with the StreamAhead Assessment.Join the Conversation

What's one question you wish you'd asked earlier in your healthcare career?

Share on LinkedIn @DrRuthVo or Instagram @drruthvo.

Workstreams: Practice, Research, Quality and Safety

Feeling stuck in clinical practice but not sure if academia is for you? Think you missed your chance because you didn't do honours? Caroline Mills shows why your clinical frustrations might actually be pointing you toward your next career evolution.

Dr Caroline Mills is a senior lecturer in occupational therapy at Western Sydney University, Australia whose research is dedicated to improving the lives of autistic people and those who support them. After 11 years as an OT - including time as a school-based therapist working with autistic children across Australia, the UK, and China - burning questions about sensory interventions led her back to university for a PhD in this often controversial research area.Now, 20 years into her health career, current research spans supporting sensory processing in autistic children, aging autistic adults, technology applications for people with disabilities, and dementia interventions, always with a focus on applied research that makes real-world difference.

In this episode, Caroline answers:

• What does a typical academic week actually look like?
• What's the best and hardest thing about being in academia right now?
• How do you handle constant rejection and failure in research?
• How do you measure the real impact of your work when metrics don't tell the story?
• When do you say yes vs no to opportunities (and why you need a mission)?
• How do you find your identity when transitioning from clinician to academic?
• Should you go straight from graduation to academia or get practice experience first?
• What external constraints impact career development in research?
• How do you balance academic demands with having young children?

Caroline's honest insights cover:

• Why clinical experience was essential before her research career
• The toxic work culture in academia and how to navigate it
• Finding your research "people" across different departments
• Managing the slow pace of research
• Building resilience for the rejection-heavy academic world

Perfect for: Clinicians considering research, health professionals curious about academia, or anyone wondering about the reality behind university life.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Academia and Current Role

09:04 Challenges and Rewards in Academia

15:52 The Journey into Research and PhD

20:35 Research Focus and Controversies

27:46 Navigating Opportunities and Saying No

36:19 The Slow Pace of Research

41:26 Career Path and Identity in Academia

47:32 External Influences and Support Systems

Show Links:

• The Conversation
• Connect with Caroline Mills on LinkedIn HERE

Ready to explore if research or education could be your next evolution? Take the StreamAhead Assessment to discover which career pathway truly aligns with your strengths and interests. Learn more HERE.

Explore more of what Career Cliniq has to offer to support you in navigating your career in healthcare HERE.

Keywords

academia, occupational therapy, research, teaching, career development, challenges, impact, community, mentorship, health sciences, healthcare

Picture this: you're 20, in your junior year studying nutrition, and life throws you a massive curveball. Most people might put their career dreams on hold.

Not today's guest.

She finished her degree while pumping breast milk in campus chemistry bathrooms, became a successful dietitian, then watched medical colleagues unknowingly plant seeds of shame in seven-year-olds during routine appointments.

It's an honour to welcome Colleen Sloan to Evolving in Healthcare.

Colleen is both a registered dietitian and physician assistant who's spent a decade in paediatric practice. From single motherhood through PA school to building a podcast that's changing how clinicians talk about nutrition, she's never taken the conventional path.

What I find most compelling about Colleen is how she consistently identifies problems that harm patients, then builds the skills to address them. Sometimes the most important career moves come disguised as problems you simply can't ignore.

If you're a healthcare professional feeling stuck in roles that no longer fit, considering additional training, or wondering how to transition from employee to entrepreneur while maintaining clinical practice, this conversation offers a framework for making strategic rather than reactive career decisions.

We Explore:

• How life's biggest curveballs can actually clarify your professional direction
• Why the strategic decision to retrain as a single mum paid off in unexpected ways

• What's fundamentally wrong with how we talk to kids about their bodies in healthcare settings
• How to find mentors who accelerate rather than just advise your career development
• Why authenticity matters more than fitting professional stereotypes
• How to build and test expertise-based businesses while maintaining full-time clinical practice

About Colleen Sloan

Colleen Sloan is both a registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) and certified physician assistant (PA-C) specialising in general outpatient paediatrics. With nearly nine years in clinical practice, she's uniquely positioned to understand the intersection of nutrition and primary care. Colleen hosts the Exam Room Nutrition Podcast and has recently launched a comprehensive obesity medicine course for healthcare professionals, focusing on both clinical knowledge and compassionate communication strategies.

Connect with Colleen Sloan

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/examroomnutrition/

Exam Room Nutrition Podcast: https://www.examroomnutritionpodcast.com/

Obesity Medicine Nutrition Course: https://www.examroomnutrition.com/course

Career Cliniq Resources

Ready to explore what else might be possible in your healthcare career? The StreamAhead Assessment helps you discover which work streams align with your interests and values right now. Sometimes clarity starts with understanding what's actually out there.

Take the StreamAhead Assessment

Connect with Ruth:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drruthvo/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drruthvo/

Episode Summary

What if the clients everyone warns you about turn out to be the most transformative? In this episode, psychotherapist Chris Bradshaw with a PhD in Clinical Psychology shares his unexpected journey from aspiring civil rights attorney to discovering profound truths about helping people. Chris reveals why "difficult" populations aren't actually difficult, how we as practitioners often get in our own way, and what it really takes to create sustainable practice without burning out.

Questions We Explore

When the pressure to have answers gets in the way

• Are you so focused on having the right solution that you're missing what's actually happening with your client?
• How do you sit with not knowing while still being helpful?
• What happens when you and your client disagree about what the real problem is?

The myth of "difficult" people

• What if the clients everyone warns you about aren't actually the problem?
• Are we making excuses for why certain populations are "hard to work with" instead of examining our own approach?
• How do clients actually help us become better practitioners?

What presence actually looks like (and why we avoid it)

• Why does being truly present feel so uncomfortable for helpers?
• How do you balance being supportive with being challenging?
• What's the difference between being present to your own agenda versus being present to your client's experience?

Building sustainable practice without burning out

• How do qualifications open doors to different parts of the system - but also trap you in others?
• When does saying yes to growth opportunities actually harm your practice?
• How do you translate big professional goals into daily schedule reality?

Timestamps

01:06 Unexpected Pathway into Counselling

03:10 Finding Meaning in Counselling

08:22 Challenging Assumptions in Therapy

14:41 The Journey to Certification

19:57 Research and Therapeutic Presence

24:56 Navigating Therapeutic Presence

27:19 The Role of Presence in Healthcare

29:12 Balancing Client Needs and Professional Expertise

32:04 Burnout in Healthcare Professionals

35:39 Strategies for Preventing Burnout

40:23 Setting Goals and Managing Time

48:19 Future Directions in Therapy Practice

About Chris Bradshaw

Chris Bradshaw is a psychotherapist with a PhD in clinical psychology who specialises in depth-oriented therapy and somatic approaches. His research focuses on therapeutic presence and the client experience of attunement. Chris has worked across diverse settings from addiction treatment to private practice, consistently discovering that the populations others label as "difficult" are often the most ready for meaningful change.

Connect with Chris:LinkedIn Profile - HERE

Chris' Podcasts - HERE

Career Cliniq Resources

Struggling to work out your long term goals and whether they should involve continuing with client facing work or not? Check out the Your Next Step Mini-Course which walks you through my 5-Step Aligning Purpose framework or explore getting some 1:1 support and get clear now with The Clarity Compass.

Visit Career Cliniq for more tools and insights on navigating your health career evolution.

Join the Conversation

What resonated most with you from Chris's journey? Share your thoughts and tag us - I'd love to hear how these insights apply to your own healthcare career. Follow this podcast, LinkedIn or Instagram

Episode Summary

What happens when a physical therapist tells their spouse, "I just have this itch—I need to share what I know with somebody else"? For Cody Thompson, that dining table moment sparked a 15-year journey from home health practice to remote PhD faculty.

Cody's evolution challenges every assumption about linear healthcare careers. From driving two hours each way to teach as a lab assistant, to strategically leveraging market needs for program director roles, his story reveals how curiosity and opportunity can reshape your entire trajectory. This conversation explores practical realities of transitioning into healthcare education, financial calculations most clinicians get wrong, and why we're missing countless career branches by staying in our comfortable scope of practice lanes.

We Explore

• How do you recognise when professional restlessness points toward something new?
• What does it mean to trade unmotivated patients for hungry students?
• When is uncertainty worth sacrificing familiar comfort?

• How can you leverage organisational needs with existing skills?

• What financial calculations do healthcare professionals get wrong about education roles?
• How do you maintain professional identity while expanding into unexpected territories?

About Cody Thompson

Cody Thompson is a physical therapist and Associate Professor with over 20 years of experience who transitioned into healthcare education. He currently runs a health science PhD program at a university in Alabama and helps healthcare professionals navigate career transitions into academic roles. Cody is also a father of five and advocates for building career flexibility that aligns with personal values and life circumstances.

Guest Links

• Connect with Cody on LinkedIn
• Non-Clinical Gig Job Board (US-based)
  

Career Cliniq Resources

Inspired by Cody's journey? The ⁠StreamAhead Assessment⁠ helps health professionals discover which of eight healthcare workstreams align with your current interests and life circumstances.  Find out more ⁠HERE.

Join the Conversation

LinkedIn: @DrRuthVo @CareerCliniq | Instagram: @drruthvo