Evolving in Healthcare

Dr Ruth Vo, Career Cliniq
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Evolving in Healthcare is a show about how change happens, and the people who make it. Dr Ruth Vo talks with health professionals who are reshaping their careers, their work, or the systems around them, and gets underneath the decisions and strategies involved. Honest, human, and longer than a highlight reel. Her guests come from across the field and around the world, from clinical practice and research to education, health tech, quality and safety, strategy and management. Different workstreams, one shared instinct, that something could be better and it's worth trying to move it. Ruth deconstructs how they did it and carries the lessons across the silos that usually keep them apart. The conversations don't skirt the hard parts, the constraints, the doubt, the status quo nobody questions, or the things underneath a career: purpose, values, identity, and what success actually looks like. A dietitian with twenty years in healthcare and a PhD in decision-making, Ruth isn't here to tell you what to do, but to examine how real people decide, change, and evolve. Because making a difference, and a living, can take a hundred different shapes, none of them lesser. If you can feel that something could be better but can't yet see how, these conversations show you what's possible, and that you're not the only one asking.

  1. 18h ago

    The dietitian who built Australia's first sustainable food systems unit with Liza Barbour

    Liza Barbour on planetary health, dietetics and building a career with room for yes and no Liza Barbour trained as a dietitian and now teaches planetary health to the next generation of nutritionists and dietitians at Monash University. She also runs a pickle business with her husband and works the farmers markets on weekends. Ruth Vo speaks with Liza about how she holds three kinds of work together without it draining her, and what keeps the mix feeling meaningful rather than scattered. Her view is especially useful for listeners thinking about non-clinical dietetics, transferable skills and destination roles beyond private practice or hospital work. She also speaks from lived experience of combining academic work, small business ownership and family life. We Explore: Why Liza builds her roles around energy rather than a job titleHow she treats remote dietetics, overseas work and academia as moves, not destinationsWhy saying yes early built her breadth, then became something she had to limitWhy planetary health sits at the centre of her work now, and the planetary empathy she wants dietitians to carryHow to get a foothold in planetary health work as a dietitian or allied health professionalHow shared systems at home and a team culture at work make room to be less than optimal00:00 - Liza Barbour introduces her many hats 01:33 - Systems that keep work and family running 05:14 - Sharing the mental load at home 07:19 - Team culture, brain fog and not being optimal all the time 12:11 - Teaching in the age of artificial intelligence 13:33 - First remote dietetics role in Western Australia 18:33 - Pressure to do a PhD and waiting for the right topic 22:56 - What the PhD taught her about being a project manager 25:22 - Building Australia's first sustainable food systems unit 37:13 - Finding a North Star in climate leadership 54:00 - Where planetary health skills can lead next 57:21 - Missing client-facing community dietetics About Guest Liza Barbour is an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian and senior lecturer at Monash University, where she teaches planetary health, sustainable food systems and public health nutrition. Her background runs across remote and community dietetics in Australia, a year with the Ministry of Health in Tonga, and national food insecurity work at SecondBite. She also co-founded Dillicious, a small-batch pickle business on the Mornington Peninsula. Connect with Liza - https://www.linkedin.com/in/liza-barbour/ Check out her Pickle business - https://www.dillicious.com.au/ Career Cliniq Resources If this episode has you thinking about where your energy and your direction meet, StreamAhead is the place to start. https://careercliniq.com/streamahead Join the Conversation Liza guards her time against a clear North Star. What’s yours? Tell Ruth on LinkedIn - https://linkedin.com/in/drruthvo or Instagram -https://instagram.com/drruthvo

    The dietitian who built Australia's first sustainable food systems unit with Liza Barbour

  2. Sep 21

    How an Introverted Exercise Physiologist Came to Lead Regulation for Her Profession with Carly Ryan

    Carly Ryan spent seven years as a clinical exercise physiologist before a job assessing accreditation applications took her somewhere she never pictured. That was thirteen years, five roles and an executive seat ago, and she now leads the regulatory function at Exercise & Sports Science Australia (ESSA). She says she fell into every one of those roles. If you're an allied health professional around the seven-year mark, wondering where your clinical skills fit beyond treatment, Carly's move from EP into healthcare leadership shows what a career transition into regulation and professional standards actually involves. That includes the move to a desk job, the trade-offs of stepping back from hands-on work, and the introvert's dread of networking. Great for folks interested in professional association work, professional standards, strategy and quality and safety workstreams. We ExploreHow Carly went from assessing accreditation applications to leading ESSA's regulatory functionHow Carly gets career advice as a self-confessed introvert who dreads the cold openHow to see the transferable skills in your clinical work, using the lens Carly applies to professional standardsHow Carly uses the goal-setting skills from clinical practice to get buy-in for system-level changeThe trade-off Carly made moving from doing the work to leading it Timestamps 01:54 Why Carly Chose a Career in Exercise Physiology 03:11 Building Confidence and Value in the EP Profession 14:24 Career Pivots: Moving Beyond Clinical Practice 18:58 Mentors, Networking and Creating Career Opportunities 24:51 From Clinical EP to Regulation and Professional Standards 28:45 Transferable Skills for Health Professionals 32:22 Transitioning from Clinical Work to Leadership 39:36 Leadership, Stakeholder Engagement and Listening 49:40 The Future of Exercise Physiology Career Pathways 54:47 Values, Burnout and Knowing When to Move On 59:00 Ethical Practice, Client Feedback and Better Healthcare 65:00 Career Mapping Support for Health Professionals  About Carly Ryan Carly Ryan is an exercise physiologist and executive at ESSA, leading professional standards, university program accreditation, and ethics and disciplinary work. She is also a board director of the National Alliance of Self Regulating Health Professions (NASRHP). Seven years of clinical work in lifestyle programs, education and group exercise give her a practitioner's view of what regulation looks like on the ground. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carly-ryan-a4482192/ESSA: https://www.essa.org.auNASRHP: https://nasrhp.org.auCareer Cliniq ResourcesCarly's roles only made sense once she was in them. StreamAhead maps where your interests and experience sit across the wider spectrum of healthcare work, so you can see your options before you fall into them. https://careercliniq.com/streamahead Join the ConversationWhat's a role you only understood once you were in it? Connect with Ruth on LinkedIn or Instagram.

    How an Introverted Exercise Physiologist Came to Lead Regulation for Her Profession with Carly Ryan

  3. Aug 20

    From Hospital OT Clinical Educator to Online Edupreneur with Clare Batkin

    Ten years of clinical seniority, and Clare Batkin still chose to start again on a junior wage in a sector she knew very little about. Clare Batkin is an occupational therapist and founder of Your OT Tutor. She and Ruth explore the decisions that have taken Clare from the ideal part-time job share Clinical Educator role in a hospital to what can be seen as starting all over again. We get underneath the drivers for running your own business and what helps you avoid the traps of comparing whether you are doing enough. This one's for any health professional who has a strong interest in the education workstream but needs to hear the less traditional ways you can apply your skills to help clients and patient's get the best service. Press play if you're weighing up a move that looks illogical on paper. We ExploreWhy do some OTs thrive on hospital structure while others feel boxed in by it?What made trading a decade of seniority for a new grad wage feel like the safe option, not the risky one?At what point does unpaid, after-hours work stop being generosity and start being a business plan?How do you know your business is "enough" when you're the only one deciding what that means?Why team up with the OT teaching the exact same course as you? Timestamps00:42 Introduction to Clare Batkin's career journey 02:42 Finding your path in OT 06:43 Choosing the right early-career role 13:11 Career experimentation and self-awareness 17:02 From hospital clinician to educator 20:08 A move that changed the career path 26:48 Starting a solo education business 31:14 Finding a niche in OT education 37:37 Building a healthcare education business on your own terms 44:40 Helping OTs build lasting careers About Clare BatkinClare Batkin is an occupational therapist and the founder of Your OT Tutor, an education business supporting OTs working across Australia's hospital, private practice and NDIS sectors. After close to two decades spanning hospital rotations, senior clinical roles and university teaching, she now runs webinars, memberships and clinical education resources focused on the transferable OT skills that hold up across any setting, alongside a growing podcast library. Connect with Clare on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clare-batkin/Join Clare’s free Learning Library: https://yott.au/learninglibraryBecome a Your OT Tutor Connector or Alliance member: https://yott.au/membershipListen to the “How to be a better OT” podcast: https://yott.au/podcast or on your favourite podcast platformCareer Cliniq ResourcesIf this episode has you questioning whether your current role still fits, the StreamAhead Assessment is a good place to start figuring out what would actually suit you better. Learn more about StreamAhead HERE LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drruthvo Instagram: instagram.com/drruthvo

    From Hospital OT Clinical Educator to Online Edupreneur with Clare Batkin

  4. Jun 10

    Self-Leadership for Health Professionals Who Want More Influence with Ruth Andermatt

    Plenty of capable people learn to lead by copying whoever's already in charge. It works for a while, right up until it leaves you running on someone else's fuel and still not quite yourself. Ruth Andermatt is a Canadian self-leadership coach who has spent more than two decades working with executives and emerging leaders, most of them introverts. She was often the only woman in the room, and she has thought hard about what it costs to keep conforming to a style that was never going to fit. If you're in a non-titled role wishing you had more influence, or eyeing a step into management because it looks like the only way to have impact, this conversation is for you. Ruth draws a clean line between managing people and leading them, and she begins where most leadership advice skips ahead: how you lead yourself. Expect plenty on holding your ground without conforming, guiding the people above you, and what to do when the version of success you've been chasing quietly stops fitting. We ExploreWhy conforming to get into leadership tends to run out of roadThe difference between managing people and actually leading themLeading the people above you, not only the ones who report to youWhat self-leadership asks of you long before any title arrivesThe cost of staying in survival mode and calling it dedication Timestamps 01:15 Being the only woman in the room and the pull to conform 05:45 Masculine and feminine leadership, and why most workplaces pick one 08:48 The exhaustion of dancing to someone else's tune just to get hired 13:40 Why a title doesn't make you a leader, and what self-leadership actually means 16:44 Hitting a plateau and shifting your perspective instead of walking away 29:05 The blind spot that holds capable people back, women especially 33:08 Leading the people above you, not just the ones who report to you 41:25 Survival worn as a badge of honour, and the price every choice carries 45:09 Untangling your identity from how you got here and redefining success 55:48 Outgrowing your manager and repositioning without burning the bridge About Ruth AndermattRuth Andermatt is a self-leadership coach and consultant and the founder of Andermatt Consulting Experience (A.C.E. Inc) in Canada. A former national-level paddler and UBC graduate, she has coached executives, business owners and emerging leaders for more than twenty years, with a particular focus on women and introverts who lead quietly but effectively. Her view, useful for anyone in a hierarchical field like healthcare, is that leading yourself is the foundation everything else is built on, title or no title. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachruth/Website: https://andermattconsulting.com Career Cliniq Resources If this conversation has you wondering where your influence and interests actually sit, the StreamAhead Assessment maps your experience across the full spectrum of healthcare work, not just the path you trained for: https://careercliniq.com/streamahead Connect with Ruth on LinkedIn or Instagram

    Self-Leadership for Health Professionals Who Want More Influence with Ruth Andermatt

  5. May 28

    From Project Officer Dietitian to a Portfolio Career in Strategy with Bree Murray

    Bree Murray has never seen a patient. She'll still put "dietitian" on every form she fills in. She's spent 15 years in professional associations, food industry, health profession regulation, and a job-shared CEO role and has never once questioned whether that makes her a real dietitian. This conversation is for anyone who has. We ExploreBuilding a dietitian career entirely outside clinical practiceWhat personal life seasons reveal about what you actually valueHow a project officer becomes a job-sharing CEO The real cost of a portfolio career when you've come from a for-purpose backgroundThe difference between a career compass and a career planAbout Bree MurrayBree Murray is an Australian dietitian with over 15 years of experience spanning professional association work, food industry consulting, health profession regulation, and executive leadership. She currently serves as executive officer for a Council of Deans of Nutrition and Dietetics, supports governance work with self-regulating health professions, and sits on the National Alliance of Self-Regulating Health Professions board. Her career has been built through relationships, referrals, and a consistent willingness to move into unfamiliar territory when the fit is right. Connect with Bree Murrayhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/bree-murray-44193528/ Career Cliniq ResourcesIf this conversation got you thinking about what's actually guiding your career decisions, the StreamAhead Assessment maps your interests and experience across the full spectrum of healthcare work - not just the path you trained for. 👉 Take the StreamAhead Assessment Join the ConversationWhat's the moment you realised the shape of your days didn't match what you actually cared about? I'd love to hear it. LinkedIn | Instagram

    From Project Officer Dietitian to a Portfolio Career in Strategy with Bree Murray

  6. May 12

    From North Dakota to Biotech: How an OT Found Regulatory Writing with Keagen Hadley

    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. Keagen 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. Keagen 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 experienceWhy the financial variable in career decisions deserves more honesty in the helping professionsHow your cognitive wiring reveals itself early and what to do when it doesn't match the clinical pathWhy "regulatory medical writer" misrepresents the actual work of the roleHow credibility gets built in an industry where your healthcare credential doesn't automatically count Chapters 00:00 Meet Keagen 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 Keagen LinkedIn: Keagen HadleyNewsletter:  https://cliniciansguide.substack.com/What Regulatory Writers Actually Make - https://thecliniciansguide.myflodesk.com/uegisjcpq96-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.

    From North Dakota to Biotech: How an OT Found Regulatory Writing with Keagen Hadley

  7. Apr 29

    From Tenured Professor to the Pork Industry with Kristen Hicks-Roof

    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 ExploreThe fight to prove nutrition's value and why it follows you no matter what setting you're inWhat happens when your drive and the culture around you aren't well matchedThe identity shift from "mother scholar" to something with no established nameHow a 2am LinkedIn scroll during maternity leave became a career turning pointWhat dietitians and clinicians misunderstand about working in the food industry Chapters 00:00 Unexpected Career Paths06:31 The Role of Nutrition Professionals17:08 Academia and Career Transition28:26 The Decision to Leave Academia34:01 Navigating Tension in Academia42:46 The Impact of Motherhood on Career49:29 Role in Nutrition Research59:12 Building Connections and Following Passions About Kristen Hicks-RoofKristen 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-RoofPodcast: Nutrition ConnectionCareer Cliniq ResourcesWondering 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 ConversationHave you ever been in a role where your drive worked against you? Tell us about it. Find us on LinkedIn and Instagram.

    From Tenured Professor to the Pork Industry with Kristen Hicks-Roof

  8. Apr 15

    How a Pain Science Crisis Took One PT from her Dream Clinic Role to Health Tech with Emily Kelly

    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 roomThe emotional cost of clinical empathy that no one talks about at universityA pay structure that punishes the qualification it demandsWhat hiring managers actually notice when a clinician interviews for a non-clinical roleThe 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 KellyMentioned: 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/

    How a Pain Science Crisis Took One PT from her Dream Clinic Role to Health Tech with Emily Kelly
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About

Evolving in Healthcare is a show about how change happens, and the people who make it. Dr Ruth Vo talks with health professionals who are reshaping their careers, their work, or the systems around them, and gets underneath the decisions and strategies involved. Honest, human, and longer than a highlight reel. Her guests come from across the field and around the world, from clinical practice and research to education, health tech, quality and safety, strategy and management. Different workstreams, one shared instinct, that something could be better and it's worth trying to move it. Ruth deconstructs how they did it and carries the lessons across the silos that usually keep them apart. The conversations don't skirt the hard parts, the constraints, the doubt, the status quo nobody questions, or the things underneath a career: purpose, values, identity, and what success actually looks like. A dietitian with twenty years in healthcare and a PhD in decision-making, Ruth isn't here to tell you what to do, but to examine how real people decide, change, and evolve. Because making a difference, and a living, can take a hundred different shapes, none of them lesser. If you can feel that something could be better but can't yet see how, these conversations show you what's possible, and that you're not the only one asking.

Information

  • Creator
    Dr Ruth Vo, Career Cliniq
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    25
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Dr Ruth Vo, Career Cliniq
  • Show Website
    Evolving in Healthcare

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