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Evolving in Healthcare

Evolving in Healthcare

Written by: Career Cliniq
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About this listen

Most health professionals are good at their job. Fewer feel like their job is actually good for them.

Evolving in Healthcare is for the ones sitting with that gap. Each episode, Dr Ruth Vo talks with a health professional who has navigated a real career crossroads. The pivots, the slow burns, the moments something shifted, and what it actually took to move.

No shortcuts. No tidy success stories. Just honest accounts of how real people figured out what a career worth having actually looks like for them.

Hosted by Dr Ruth Vo, dietitian and professional identity coach with 20 years in healthcare.

2026 Career Cliniq
Careers Economics Personal Success Self-Help Success
Episodes
  • From North Dakota to Biotech: How an OT Found Regulatory Writing with Keagan Hadley
    May 12 2026

    You're halfway through a degree or deep into a career you're not sure you'll stay in and the loudest fear isn't about what's next. It's that everything you've already invested might be wasted. Keagan Hadley finished an entire OT doctorate he wasn't sure he'd use and it was the very thing that gave him room to build a completely different career.

    Keagan Hadley is a regulatory medical writer for a large biotech company. He holds a doctorate in occupational therapy and has spent over a decade in the biotech and pharmaceutical space.

    We Explore

    • How geographic limitation can become a catalyst for unconventional experience
    • Why the financial variable in career decisions deserves more honesty in the helping professions
    • How your cognitive wiring reveals itself early and what to do when it doesn't match the clinical path
    • Why "regulatory medical writer" misrepresents the actual work of the role
    • How credibility gets built in an industry where your healthcare credential doesn't automatically count

    Chapters

    00:00 Meet Keagan Hadley - regulatory medical writer and OT

    03:22 How a small-town CRO in North Dakota opened the door to biotech

    08:50 $96K in student loans and the decision to finish anyway

    14:14 The lecture that reframed scale and patient impact

    19:25 Remote work, flexibility, and family life in biotech

    24:48 Starting before you feel ready and selling yourself as a novice

    35:56 Why recruiters matter more than applications in this field

    45:10 Wrangling physicians who disagree

    47:28 AI and regulatory writing

    57:25 Why clinicians won't say the money part out loud

    Connect with Keagan

    • LinkedIn: Keagan Hadley
    • Newsletter: https://cliniciansguide.substack.com/
    • What Regulatory Writers Actually Make - https://thecliniciansguide.myflodesk.com/uegisjcpq9
    • 6-Month Roadmap to Becoming a Regulatory Medical Writer - https://thecliniciansguide.myflodesk.com/nx48w16db8

    Career Cliniq Resources

    If you're trying to get clearer on what actually drives your next step, the StreamAhead Assessment will map your interests within healthcare.

    👉 Take the StreamAhead Assessment

    Connect with Ruth on LinkedIn and Instagram.

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    1 hr
  • From Tenured Professor to the Pork Industry with Kristen Hicks-Roof
    Apr 29 2026

    Most health professionals spend years building toward a role they're told is the destination. What happens when you get there and realise you're still evolving?

    Kristen Hicks-Roof is a registered dietitian and PhD researcher who built a full academic career - tenure, grants, research agendas, and chose to leave it to lead human nutrition at the US National Pork Board, a role that didn't exist before she took it.

    This conversation gets into what it's like to be a high performer navigating competitive dynamics, the identity reckoning that happens when your career and your motherhood collide on the same timeline, and what it actually looks like to take clinical skills into an industry most dietitians are taught to distrust. If you've ever felt like you outgrew a role you genuinely valued, or wondered whether the skills you built in practice could belong somewhere completely different, this one will sit with you.

    We Explore
    • The fight to prove nutrition's value and why it follows you no matter what setting you're in
    • What happens when your drive and the culture around you aren't well matched
    • The identity shift from "mother scholar" to something with no established name
    • How a 2am LinkedIn scroll during maternity leave became a career turning point
    • What dietitians and clinicians misunderstand about working in the food industry

    Chapters

    • 00:00 Unexpected Career Paths
    • 06:31 The Role of Nutrition Professionals
    • 17:08 Academia and Career Transition
    • 28:26 The Decision to Leave Academia
    • 34:01 Navigating Tension in Academia
    • 42:46 The Impact of Motherhood on Career
    • 49:29 Role in Nutrition Research
    • 59:12 Building Connections and Following Passions

    About Kristen Hicks-Roof

    Kristen Hicks-Roof PhD, RD is the Director of Human Nutrition at the US National Pork Board, where she oversees research investment and science communication across stakeholder groups from farmers to federal policymakers. A former associate professor with promotion and tenure, her academic research focused on integrating nutrition across healthcare teams and the lived experience of mother scholars in academia. She also hosts the Nutrition Connection podcast.

    • LinkedIn: Kristen Hicks-Roof
    • Podcast: Nutrition Connection
    Career Cliniq Resources

    Wondering where your clinical skills could actually take you? The StreamAhead Assessment helps you map what you've built and where it could go next. 👉 Take the StreamAhead Assessment

    Join the Conversation

    Have you ever been in a role where your drive worked against you? Tell us about it. Find us on LinkedIn and Instagram.

    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 2 mins
  • How a Pain Science Crisis Took One PT from her Dream Clinic Role to Health Tech with Emily Kelly
    Apr 15 2026

    Emily Kelly chose physical therapy because a torn ACL at 14 showed her what one-on-one care could do. She found her dream clinic, treated patients for an hour each, and loved the work. Then a new grad started questioning what she believed about pain, and the clinical identity she had spent years building started to come apart.

    Emily is now a product manager at Prompt, a health tech company building software for rehabilitation providers in the US.

    This conversation covers what it actually took to get from one to the other. A pay structure that punished the qualification it demanded. The emotional cost of being the clinician who takes everything home. A healthcare innovation conference that lit something up. And a series of deliberate, unglamorous decisions that most career transition stories skip over entirely. If you are a health professional who knows something needs to shift but cannot see the steps from where you are, this episode lays them out honestly.

    We explore:

    • What pain science does to a clinician's sense of who they are in the room
    • The emotional cost of clinical empathy that no one talks about at university
    • A pay structure that punishes the qualification it demands
    • What hiring managers actually notice when a clinician interviews for a non-clinical role
    • The unglamorous middle of moving from physical therapy to health tech product management

    About Emily Kelly

    Emily Kelly is a physical therapist and product manager at Prompt, a health tech company building practice management software for rehabilitation providers. Based in Denver, Colorado, she spent eight years in outpatient physical therapy before moving through customer success and leadership into product.

    • LinkedIn: Emily Kelly
    • Mentioned: Meredith Caston / The Non-Clinical PT, Lorimer Moseley (pain science researcher), Peter O'Sullivan, Adriaan Louw

    Career Cliniq Resources

    If this episode has you wondering where else your clinical expertise could take you, the StreamAhead Assessment maps your interests across eight healthcare work streams and shows you options you might not have considered yet.

    Take StreamAhead HERE!

    Connect with Ruth

    • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drruthvo/
    • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drruthvo/
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 10 mins
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