Top 13 Tips for Clinicians Looking to Move to a Non-Clinic Role in Women's Health

Insights by Laura Demuth, SVP Patient Care, Curology

Eight years ago Laura Demuth made the switch from working as a Nurse Practitioner to being the first clinical hire at Curology. Over the past 8 years, she’s worked hand-in-hand with the company’s founders to scale the business significantly. Along the way she’s done everything from stuffing boxes of product to building a world-class team of practitioners. She’s passionate about helping clinicians make the same transition and graciously shared her experience and practical tips with the In Women’s Health community.

Here are her top tips for making the transition:

1. Get multi-state licensed - Work to get licensed in high volume states (CA, TX, NY, FL, IL) either through your own networks or using a company like Medallion. This will make you more competitive to startups and digital health companies providing asynchronous care.
   

2. Network with Clinical Leaders - Build your network of other clinicians who have made the same jump, especially those in roles like Laura’s with people who manage clinicians and/or the clinical practice at a women’s health company or startup. Joining communities and groups are a great way to do this.

3. Learn the business side of digital health - Learning the business side of digital health can feel overwhelming at first but is crucial to finding success in roles outside of the clinic. Take a class, join industry publications and newsletters, attend industry conferences and ask lots of questions (there are no dumb ones!) in every digital health environment you are in.

4. Do your due diligence on companies - Understand their financial performance by reading about their latest fundraising round. Check to see hiring and growth trends on their company LinkedIn page. Ask around in your network or join a community (suggestions below) to get insights on what people are hearing about the company’s performance. In an interview, ask about the amount of runway a company has and what their plans are for future fundraising. In this economic environment, a company should ideally have 18-24 months of runway (amount of time until they run out of money).

5. Start keeping your data - Start keeping track of your wins, and your stats in order to include these on your resume. Think about patients per day, the number of protocols you’ve developed, your work on a quality committee, the quality stats that you have improved, patient outcome stats, numbers of medical content reviews you’ve done etc. These are all ways to show major impact on your resume.

    

6. Learn how to talk about your wins. Once you start keeping track of the data, get comfortable talking about it and promoting it. Don’t be afraid to use industry buzzwords once you learn them. Your experience translates more than you think out of clinical practice. Often times as clinicians, we are uncomfortable talking about our wins — but your ability to do so will be key to your success in making the transition.

7. Get tech savvy - If you work in a women’s health startup you will use different technology than you do in-clinic. Find reasons to get comfortable with technology startups use including GSuite, collaboration tools (Slack, Trello, Figma, Airtable) and customer service tools (Intercom, Zendesk).

8. Invest in Yourself - Make investments in courses, content and communities that help you do all of the above. Recommendations include:

   1. Healthcare Breakdown - The Finance Course by Preston Alexander. The best healthcare finance course out there. Preston also writes one of the best healthcare newsletters there is.

   2. In Women’s Health - A membership platform for advancing your career in women’s health. Includes a private community, comprehensive job board of clinical roles and a talent academy to dive deeper into self-awareness, self-leadership and power skills. Sign up for their free weekly newsletter or use the code IWH20 for 20% off your first month on their private membership platform.

   3. Humans in Healthcare - A private community for clinicians looking to make the switch out of clinic-based care. Membership is by application and open to anyone with a credential.

   4. Check out FemInnovation’s Medical Consultant Certificate. The Femtech Medical Consultant Certificate trains clinicians and medical professionals to work as thought leaders, advisors, officers, and directors in emerging femtech (i.e., women’s digital health) startups.

   5. Follow Karla Loken DO OBGYN FACOOG and Lyndsey Harper MD, FACOG, IF on LinkedIn. In addition to Laura, these are two clinicians who are passionate about helping others make the switch.

Laura also mentioned key considerations for making the switch that are often overlooked:

• It’s a desk/computer job - Making the switch from in-clinic practice to digital or telehealth is a very different way of working. In clinic, you are used to walking around with a computer, but being on the move. Changing to a startup or business-focused role will likely keep you stationary in front of a computer all day.

• You will likely work more hours than you do at your practice, especially if you are in an early-stage startup.

• You will not be the only expert everyone turns to. This may be hard to adjust to at first.

• There are more roles than you think in a company and you are qualified for more than you think with your advanced training. Don’t hesitate to also think about product management, marketing (medical content review) or partnerships/sales roles as well. You have significant value to add in those areas.

• Imposter syndrome is real, and normal. A number of the resources and communities above will help you both normalize and work through this as you make the switch.

Laura reminds us that as clinicians, you’ve done the hard part. You’ve been to years of advanced training — now it’s just about learning to put that advanced training to work in a different way that still has a positive impact on patient care.

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