Raji’s response to my first question on what she is doing now took me by surprise. She unashamedly wore her pride on her sleeve, which can be easily misunderstood as too much ego, especially for a woman. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Her excitement of what’s next was so visible on her face. However, she admits to being nervous about her new role as a Product Manager, one that she is entering nearly 20 years into her healthcare career. That mix of emotions is something I’ve certainly felt, too, when doing something new. Together, we agreed that…

The organisation she’s soon to be a new employee of has a track record of developing clinicians beyond the bedside, appreciating the value we can bring. As I’m listening, I cannot see any straight line between a Physical Therapist and a full-time product manager for a health tech company.

So Raji takes me back to the beginning, in India, as a fully qualified Physical Therapist with a Master of Cardiorespiratory Therapy under her belt. Her first two years after graduation were in acute care in one of India’s biggest teaching hospitals.

It was a time when Physical Therapists were still finding their seat at the table of health settings and multidisciplinary care. For Raji, this meant poor role appreciation, being considered a masseuse, and name-calling and gaslighting from other more established health professionals. Unexpectedly facing a professional identity crisis so early in her career, she was at “the point where it kind of made me believe that this is all that there is to me”. 

She responded with resolve and I could see a spark was lit as a result. A spark that ignited the professional resilience that would see her through many more challenges to come.

Soon after she was married, she emigrated to the USA, and this spark became a fire of determination. With her visa she had rights to work as a physical therapist and did so in the acute setting for the next four years. But she was constantly reminded that she was not welcome. 

In addition to the regular racism, Raji describes this as a time when employers would “squeeze every last drop out of you”, continually reminding her of indebtedness because they sorted out her immigration fees seemingly justifying paying her much less than other employees. I chose to sit with the awareness of my white privilege in this moment of our conversation. 

Mistreated, underpaid, and reaching breaking point with the regular ridicule, her initial strategy was to apply for accreditation in other states and move locations. But this was met with a wall of bureaucracy demanding that she take the English language test for each and every state in which she wanted her PT licence, despite clearly having exceptional proficiency in her work for her years in the USA. But there wasn’t a trace of ‘woe is me’ as Raji conveys how “there were a lot of incidents which kind of made me grittier and more passionate about breaking the boundaries and the barriers that everyone else was trying to put around me. It was stopping me from practising at the top of my licence”.

Determined not to wait for others to see her capability, she peeled back those layers herself and brought herself to the forefront. On principle, she opted out of having to sit the English language exam and remained in her state of Maryland.

She then ventured into the world of outpatient rehab and musculoskeletal therapy despite having spent minimal time in this clinical area or setting before. I wondered how you get a role outside your clinical specialty and main practice setting.

The word leverage would aptly describe how Raji moved her career along from this point forward.

Being the main carer for her 2-year-old child as her husband travelled a lot for work, Raji was driven by a desire for more flexibility and a less stressful work environment. I can relate to this shift in personal circumstances being a catalyst for a change in what you want and need from your career. Ignoring it comes at a cost to you that you only realise in time. Whilst her personal circumstances allowed her to take a risk, she points out:

“It would be wrong of me to say that I didn’t fear letting go of the stability I had right? But I want to grow and I want to continue to build because there is more to me and I’m yet to explore what I am meant to be. Life kind of keeps me leaning onto bigger and better things”.

Raji’s job searching for roles outside of acute care involved being transparent about her personal constraints and conditions for work. This transparency about her limited experiences in outpatient musculoskeletal work didn’t stop a relatively new local clinic from offering her the role, where she started as the only PT. She had done the research and knew they had been struggling to retain a PT. So, using that as a bargaining chip, she negotiated her practice hours to suit her childcare arrangements. “I was truly blessed that I could find that role so close to home, and they were in need of a therapist, and I could get my foot through the door”.

The practice wasn’t thriving, due to 50 competing PT outpatient clinics close by and past retention issues. Raji saw the challenge as an opportunity and began what she describes as her “first brush with her non-clinical side”. Her clinical expertise and commitment took her from 3 to 20 patients a day after a year and the ability to hire an assistant and become Clinic Director. The company began recognising her outcomes and offering her leadership training and mentoring. 

Her thirst for growth and a strong affinity for numbers and metrics fuelled her journey to Director of Clinical Operations for the same company after 18 months. However, as much as she fit well with management and business operations, Raji was active in helping others succeed, contributing greatly to the clinic's growth outcomes. She combined her personal strengths, drive and willingness to keep learning new skills to always be ready for the next opportunity up the ladder.

She reflected on her nearly six years with this PT company, which set her on a path to where she is today. Having not been afforded the privilege of a clear and secure career path, she took it upon herself to carve one out. When I highlight the tenacity her story exhibits she insists that it’s curiosity that drove her and that it should have more place in our health careers.

At that moment, I wondered what my career might have looked like if I had been more curious earlier, even at university, as I didn’t foster that until a couple of years into my career. I know from experience that curiosity is certainly not appreciated by all.

The pandemic’s disruption to frontline healthcare was the catalyst for ushering in a new season in her career. “I was just purely curious to see how far I could go leveraging the non-clinical skills and so I began the quest”. For the first two years of COVID, she transitioned her outpatient PT company into a digital one. Despite the naysayers and labyrinth of insurance codes and new systems, she managed to prove that PTs can, in fact, treat patients from behind a screen.

Hooked, Raji wanted more of the digital health space, likening it to an adrenaline rush. After six months of researching possible non-clinical roles that could leverage her expertise but still offer just as much impact for patients as being hands-on, she decided to ‘hang up her clinical coat’, resigning from her Director of Clinical Operations. 

“And it was about the end of 2022 when I decided product management is the way I want to go. I had worked with products and processes built to help our patients, but either they were helping the patients and making clinicians angry, or they were helping clinicians and making patients angry. It didn't address the end user's needs at the ground level. I knew that that was something that I could help companies do”.

She began by setting herself up as a Consultant and secured work with two health tech startups via her network. Some would have thought she’d made it here. She’d reached the top. But being her own boss, working in the startup space, she admits, “I also very quickly realized that there was a lot more learning that I needed to do on my part. And I needed a mature team that I can use as a soundboard”. And so began the hunt for a role with a more established company.

We know the result of this hunt. But it seemed that Raji had made all the right decisions at the right time, not discounting her drive and commitment to land her this well-deserved role ultimately. So, I had to ask if there were any mistakes she made. Raji willingly admitted the mistakes she made that resulted in two failed job offers. She then described the preceding twelve months as an emotional rollercoaster as she sought the right role before arriving at her first full-time product management position.

Given that Raji had achieved a lot in the clinical side of things she assumed that was her best foot to put forward. But after failing to be a preferred applicant for a few roles, she realised that she wasn’t translating that experience into language that the tech company could relate to. “It was a rude awakening when I was told ‘You need to revamp your resume. This resume might be a killer in a clinical setting, but it is not going to get you anywhere in non-clinical’. So I had to learn the hard way how to highlight and how to put the focus light on my non-clinical skills”. Once she did, she gained more traction and her value was more evident. 

Raji also shares that networking and accessing support were initially challenging. Once she knew product management was where she wanted to go, she accessed every free resource she could find online, identified its authors, and then reached out to them on LinkedIn.

“But I was blown away by how embracing people were. They were willing to listen. They were willing to guide.” She soon learned to reach out to people via InMail confidently despite the nerves, asking them to spend 30 minutes of their time with her. She now gives this to others who reach out to her, feeling strongly about giving back in the same way others gave so generously to her. 

Raji gracefully admitted to also making the mistake of applying for every role remotely similar to what she ideally wanted. She spent three months going for everything advertised, wasting time applying for roles she thought she’d use as stepping stones, but she may not like very much. She was telling herself “I'm going apply for everything that shows up on Indeed and Glassdoor and LinkedIn, and I'll see what sticks. And then I'll get my foot through the door and start building my career up from there”. With a compassionate tone, she confesses how that time would have been better spent reflecting on what is important or essential to the next role.

These challenges Raji faced are a good reminder that our story always involves mistakes, but the only failure is not learning from them.

Given the distinct non-clinical title she’s about to embrace, I was keen to see how she felt about her professional identity. I’d spoken to so many clinicians who moved beyond direct patient care. They can often feel a tension between their credentials, their profession and who they are in the grand scheme of healthcare. Raji was quick to convey she felt no confusion at all.

She then proceeded to share her other exploits outside of work including a YouTube channel and learning DSLR photography, once again demonstrating where her curiosity has taken her.

It’s clear Raji has learned who she is and how she will be defined, yet she indicates that she’ll always be a PT—“I don't think that because I'm moving on to the non-clinical side, there will be a hole in me that says, ‘Hey, am I not a PT anymore?’ because I am still very much a PT. Because the knowledge, skill sets, and experiences I have gained as a PT will always serve me in the long run.” 

With such a significant transition, I wanted to understand whether her sense of belonging to a group was under threat. When we work in one space for a while, we put roots down, we build connection and belonging. Raji was moving into a very different space, unrelated to being a PT. Her response showed me the compass guiding her throughout her career -

Her personal values and sense of purpose have clearly enabled confident decision-making in her professional life, narrowing the options for what suits her. But the nature of healthcare often means entwining your purpose in life with your clinical work. Raji recommends that we broaden our understanding of impact with its “different faces and presentations, which will make stepping outside your conforming box much easier.” 

In her new role, she’s excited about how the company particularly serves Medicaid-dependent services and patients, which aligns with the meaningful impact she seeks to have. “So when I set my foot out to look for companies I wanted to work for, my goal was always to land with a company dealing with social determinants of health, population health that was working in strategy building to create community outreaches and initiatives”.

Raji’s drive to serve the underprivileged fuels her fiery passion, now shining brighter than ever.

Raji’s Wisdom

1. Tailor your cover letter and resume to the role, not to your past experience — Never use a generic resume and be sure to translate your clinical experience into transferable skills and language that non-clinical or non-health professionals can relate to.

2. Network, network, network—Get a paid subscription to LinkedIn, as the free version is too limited for reaching out. Seek out the best people in the roles you want and ask for their advice.

3. Be clear and specific about your non-negotiables for a role —Don’t be desperate for any job, thinking you can make significant sacrifices at the beginning without any certainty those variables will change. 

   If you’re unsure about what table you want a seat at in healthcare, then…

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