My Transition Out of Brick and Mortar Physical Therapy

As the new year ends and I have a moment to reflect on my career path in 2022, it has certainly been a wild ride. If you would have asked me exactly 365 days ago, if I would be sitting in my home office, on a Saturday, after a productive work from home week, writing an article about my transition out of the clinic, I would tell you that you are crazy; The market is too competitive and come on! I'm a trained Doctor of Physical Therapy, how could I possibly work from home?!

Well... here I am! In that exact scenario I have described above, with an inbox flooded with messages about how I did it. So instead of writing the same response, with it becoming shorter and shorter each time, I decided to elaborate on my experience, my learning moments, and my advice to those currently in the process of transitioning from the clinic through a detailed article in the hopes of shedding some light on the process.

Now, you might be thinking - I spent 6 years in college to get my Doctorate in Physical Therapy, then another 3 years to pass my boards (thats a story for another day) and now you want to leave the clinic?! Yes. Yes, thats exactly the case because:

1. Productivity standards where starting to be impossible to meet without working excessive hours outside of work. We were also getting conflicting messages of how to meet those productivity standards. Double booking, no double booking, working through lunch, adding on patients at the end of the day, but still make sure to take a break? As a clinic manager, I was also responsible for my numbers so if my staff was slacking, I was responsible to make up for it to ensure that my clinic looked good on paper. And with my personality thats exactly what I did, treating well above productivity standards to ensure that my clinic still looked good in the eyes of management.
2. I was DRAINED. Every night I would come home from work and just, slump. Patients were draining all the energy out of me day in and day out. Now this might be a personality trait, or the change in the current population, but over the course of my career, I noticed a shift in the way patients presented themselves in the clinic. They wanted ME to fix them; they wanted ME to accommodate to their schedules; they wanted ME to count their reps and sets (how many times have we all heard, "Oh I wasn't counting" when you specifically ask for 2 sets of 15...). Spending 45 min to an hour with every patient whining and complaining was draining on ME. Now this wasn't every patient, but over time, there were more and more of them. I knew there was a different way to provide care.
3. Inflation. And family. And time. Have you ever sat down to think how much QUALITY time you are spending with your family at home? For me, the answer to this was terrifying. My work was 100% consuming my life because when I was at work, I was working; when I was home, I was frankly useless. And oftentimes weekends weren't an option either because my husband is often gone on the days that I had off. The phrase, "What is your time worth?" rang more true than ever. And with prices increasing all around us, the thought of one day spending my whole salary on day care just wasn't an option. There had to be another way...

And so my journey to find that other way began. TEN MONTHS AGO. I have always been the kind of person that thrived in interviews. If I was called in, I was sure I would get the role. And so I went into this process assuming it would be just like every other job searching process in my past. How different could it be?! The problem I very quickly ran into was I can be phenomenal at interviewing, but if I'm not getting any calls... well then, my interview skills are quite useless! So over the course of my job search I learned that applying outside of my degree as well as for non-traditional therapy jobs was going to look very different. And so I have compiled a list of ideas, suggestions, learning moments, and mistakes I made along the way:

1. Networking is your best friend. Get creative with this one. I started to utilize LinkedIn to its full potential, but there are other ways as well. The most important lesson here is talk to folks. Talk to employees of companies you are interested in; comment on their posts; message recruiters; find out what kind of transition you REALLY want to make. Once that is more clear in your mind, the rest of the list becomes much easier.
2. Learn. Like I mentioned, I utilized LinkedIn for the majority of my transition and so I took certifications on certifications through LinkedIn Learning to expand my knowledge and really figure out what I was good at outside of treating patients. What kind of transferrable skills do you have that you can enhance? Many folks I have talked to have gone on to do Google certifications, UX Design certifications, and endless courses on customer success. Choose what feels right to you. Choose things you are actually interested in, not just the things you THINK managers will like to see on your resume. In the end, this will teach you what path you want to take and what path you will be passionate about.
3. Make sure that what others see is QUALITY WORK. If your LinkedIn profile has a dark photo, spelling errors and barely any information, you are already failing yourself. Present yourself in the best light possible. Highlight career successes, put in unique characteristics, let yourself stand apart from the crowd. And if you are struggling here, have a friend or a coworker help you out! They might help you learn things about yourself that you may not have even considered are cool or unique. Same goes with your resume. There are a million different suggestions and recommendations out there on how to make your resume stand out, but what I have seen is when transitioning out of a standard PT career, highlight things YOU have done to make your employers successful. In whatever format you see fit (as long as its quality work as mentioned above). Where you a top performer at your company? Highlight it with numbers - For example: Led team of physical therapists with top 5 performance metrics and increased personal revenue by 10% year over year. Use numbers, percentages, and precise data. Remember what I said about standing out.
4. Don't. Give. Up. If this is truly the path you want to take, it will take time and effort. You will have plenty of non personal rejection emails, ghosted applications, and thanks but no thanks. Keep pushing. Keep applying. Adjust your resumes and cover letters to fit each and every position you apply for. Keep. Going. It took me 10 months to get noticed and to get an interview with my current job. TEN MONTHS. I applied to close to 30 job posting with this company. Keep grinding if its something you are passionate about.

This list is far from exhaustive, but it can help put a framework around transitioning into the digital world. The last aspect of this transition has been folks thoroughly confused on what I now do! This has definitely been the fun part to explain how physical therapy hasn't changed in YEARS. With technology the way it has grown in the last 10 years, there is no reason why therapy can't evolve as well. Can all patients transition to digital/virtual physical therapy? Absolutely not. But can... 80%? I think so. For many of my patients in a brick and mortar setting, simply moving was what they needed in order to decrease pain. Did they truly need me to be standing in front of them, telling them what to do, paying a $40 copay, 3x/week, while missing work, and sitting in traffic to get to the clinic? Nope. They simply needed to move in an appropriate way that wouldn't aggravate their pain symptoms.

And that is exactly what I now do. Through @SwordHealth I am able to develop programs for patients to perform at home, utilizing AI technology to aid them in proper movement through the exercises I prescribe. Not only that, but they are able to to do them on their own time, at home, with their kids, with their pets, without disruption to their day to day lives. And because of this, I am able to impact so many more individuals than I would have in a face to face setting! Seems like a win-win to me.

The physical therapy profession is evolving. And I could not be more excited to be at the leading edge of it. Many have asked me if the grass is really greener on the other side... and my answer to this is a resounding YES. For me, this transition has allowed me to take my time and my life back. And THAT is a win in my book.