What does it take to change careers in health care? These are the people and Top Companies making it happen

A year and a half into the pandemic, Ujjwal Ramtekkar , a psychiatrist, was ready for a change. As a young father, with a spouse who also works in health care, he realized he needed a position that was more family-friendly.

Now senior medical director at virtual care company Teladoc, Ramtekkar says his new role combines his clinical experience with his MBA and the work he’s previously done in telehealth, most recently at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

“Like many, many innovators and clinical leaders, I've been very frustrated with the status quo,” he said. “We need solutions with a sense of urgency, to improve access to care, but the traditional systems haven't been able to adapt.”

Health care professionals have been leaving their jobs at a rapid pace, LinkedIn data shows . Clinicians made 34% more career changes last year than they did in 2019, with each transition representing someone who started an entirely new role, not just changed employers. Yet the data also found that 45% of career changers last year remained in the health care industry, applying their clinical skills in new ways.?

Yesterday LinkedIn launched a new Top Companies in Health Care list, marking the first time we’ve broken out the best places to grow your career within the health care industry. The list, which you can see here , includes a range of employers, including health systems, drug makers, medical device companies and health care technology firms.?

These companies hire for a range of skills, from research to engineering to sales and marketing. But clinical skills are also well represented – and in high demand.

For example, health care services is the largest job function at Minnetonka, Minn.-based health insurer UnitedHealth Group (no. 14), with nurses and pharmacists holding some of the most common job titles. At Teladoc (no. 5), based in Purchase, N.Y., medical doctor is the most common position. Nurse practitioners hold the most common job at Curology (no. 17), an online skin care company.?

Burned out by irregular hours, long shifts and perennial staffing shortages, many clinicians are looking to either try their hand at entrepreneurship or move to a 9-5 environment, said Nazan Artun , a leadership and career coach for clients in health care, bio-pharma and academia.?

For them, she often recommends connecting with others who’ve made a similar transition, and can help validate their decision – or send them in another direction. And she encourages them to think of their time in patient care with a broader lens: not only have they gained clinical skills but an ability to make critical decisions as well as interpret and translate complex scientific information.

“Being a clinician is not something you can easily achieve; it requires long hours of education and hands-on experience in the field,” she said.?

Of course, finding a new career doesn’t always mean joining a new employer – which is why our Top Companies list represents not just where people want to work but where they want to stay. Our methodology looks at employers where workers are gaining skills and getting promoted, while also having low attrition. And we know that Top Companies have strong cultures; they’re working to close the gender gap and offering opportunities to people with a wide range of educational backgrounds.?

Below, I talk to clinicians at two of the Top Companies about the job transitions they made during the pandemic – whether internally or externally. The transcripts below were lightly edited for length and clarity.

Greg Mesa: From head of rehab services to vaccination coordinator

When the University of Maryland Medical System needed volunteers for a large-scale vaccination effort, Mesa raised his hand. He ultimately became site manager at M&T Bank Stadium, one of the state’s mass public-private vaccination sites, supervising more than 400 staffers and overseeing the administration of nearly 250,000 injections in six months.

LinkedIn News: How does the skill set compare?

Mesa: It doesn't. [Laughter] I'm a physical therapist by training. Nothing in physical therapy says vaccination. I really had nothing that correlated directly other than the generalized thought processes that I go through as a physical therapist: we're trained to evaluate, design and implement some type of intervention, reassess and modify if needed. And those principles are what ended up carrying me through.?

LinkedIn News: What was the biggest surprise to you?

Mesa: You know what I think it was? Just looking at all the different details that were involved. We had staffing, supplies, logistics, computers, the vaccine itself and then you have the public.? There was a lot of fear and misinformation about vaccines. Having to deal with all of those things at once was an eye-opening experience for me, but I really loved it. I just thrived on that chaos. I don't know what that says about me.

LinkedIn News: Describe a typical day for you during that time.

Mesa: In the morning, we'd have a safety huddle. We’d go over the key statistics for the day, how many people are on the schedule, how many vaccination stations we were going to have open. It had to be so fluid. We had to be able to make changes on the fly. And then we would get ready for the public to come into the clinic. As soon as the public came in, it was just: where's the next problem going to be? At one point, we had over 6000 patients in one day; we had a couple times where we had over 1000 patients in an hour.

LinkedIn News: When the vaccination effort ended, was it an adjustment to go back?

Mesa: To be honest, it was. It was a hard transition back. I loved the dynamic of working in the stadium and the challenges that were brought each and every day. I can do my regular job very well but it's just not at the same intensity.

LinkedIn News: How do you think the experience impacted your career trajectory?

Mesa: You start to realize that there are opportunities that were always there, but you didn't see them because your focus was so narrow. I have so many projects now that are like, oh, let's throw that on Greg. Greg can do that. They keep throwing projects on me because they know that I can handle them. I don't have a problem with it. It's something that helps bring me back to a little bit of that organized chaos.

Dr. Ujjwal Ramtekkar: From health system to health tech

LinkedIn News: What does a typical day look like for you?

Ramtekkar: One thing that I have noticed is, unlike traditional health care, I'm not boxed into a clinician category, so I am able to extend a lot of the other skills that I have. I find myself working on product design, strategy; looking at quality; having conversations with health plans and health system partners, so we can really become very agile in creating new services. I take a lot of pride in being a myth buster when it comes to my role; a lot of times there's this wrong conception about telehealth, including in health care, that somehow it's inferior, but we're not only providing care, but we are providing high quality, better care.

LinkedIn News: What was it like going from patient care to a corporate environment?

Ramtekkar: The business skills and telehealth innovation skills really came in handy and they were able to translate very well, But the value of real world health care experience is unbeatable. There's no substitute for the knowledge and understanding gained from practicing medicine.?

One thing that is a change is experiencing the impact of our work; sometimes in clinical medicine, it takes a long time to see some of the changes. Here, just based on sheer volume and the big operation that we have, we see in a month what a health system would see in a year or two. The collaboration, coordination and innovation is really on caffeine. We have to solve for things as they come, because everything is related to the member experience, which is our patients or the provider experience. We resolve their concerns and issues almost immediately.

There is another language that we have to learn as well, which is that of technology, design, strategy and digital health. Culture is that invisible piece that nobody talks about and is not very obvious, but that is a key piece for anybody who's looking to transition their career into the space.