You're listening to the PT Pinecast,
where smart people in healthcare come to
make noise.
Here's your host, Jimmy McKay.
All right,
she started in a place most of you
know well, treating patients,
solving problems,
and navigating the realities of clinical
care.
But somewhere along the way,
she began asking a different question.
What if the skills we use every day
as physical therapists could apply...
somewhere else entirely.
Now that curiosity led her out of the
clinic and into the world of technology,
where instead of treating patients,
she now manages complicated systems,
teams, and products.
And what she discovered might challenge
you, how you think about your own career.
So let's bring in Alana.
Alana, welcome to the show.
Hi, Jimmy.
Thanks for having me.
And before we hit record, you said,
I don't even know if this is going
to be interesting.
But I feel like when we can peer
into what someone else is doing,
when it's a little bit or a lot
different than what
normal is, right?
Normal or typical, I guess we should say.
What we think is normal is not to
other people.
So I don't know.
When I looked at what you were doing,
it sort of jumped out at me.
So let's start here.
What started the thought in your mind of
stepping outside the clinic?
There's always a logical thing,
but it doesn't happen unless there's an
emotional component.
So what was it for you?
Yeah, it was emotional.
I started dating somebody who worked from
home and I said, oh my God, wait,
you do that from home?
And obviously physical therapy is not a
job normally that you do from home.
Now there's some options to do so.
But yeah, I started questioning,
is there any way that I can take
my skills and what I do now
and do something from home.
So that was the first emotional part of
it.
But also, you know,
there was a logical part of like,
I also feel like I've treated patients for
five years,
I went to school for six years,
like I've been doing this for a while.
And I haven't really gotten anywhere yet,
other than being a PT.
So those were the main reasons why I
switched.
So let's go to the nuts and bolts
of it.
Describe what it is that you do.
I sort of, in the intro said,
you know,
you manage complex systems and teams and
products, but like, what do you do?
That's such a funny question because, so,
okay, I'm a project manager.
That's it.
But people are like,
what is a project manager?
So what I do is I am kind
of that herder, that bridge between,
you know,
different teams at the company,
and I take on any type of complex
project that needs to get done,
whether it's for the business,
for the engineering or product side of
things,
sales and marketing side of things,
I'll basically do anything and everything.
So it's somebody who is really organized
and can get people together and get a
task completed.
Yeah.
Okay.
So it sounds like if you stripped away
exactly what you did,
PTs or people in healthcare sort of do
that, similar things.
As my friend Rebecca Griffith would say,
you probably took some of your familiar
skills to an unfamiliar place and applied
them just a little bit differently.
Yeah, exactly.
I took the skills that I learned as
a PT and I had developed over so
many years and I took it into the
non-clinical world.
And there's so many jobs that are looking
for people that can do that.
Right.
But a lot of people might search
non-clinical physical therapy job.
And I got to be honest,
people aren't going to write that in the
description.
They're going to write it in different
ways.
So it might be part of your job
or your job search to
understand what they might be looking for
and sort of reverse engineer that.
Yeah.
I think typing in non-clinical physical
therapy jobs is not the best strategy.
I did that in the beginning too.
And I found things like medical device
sales and customer success roles.
And while those are great roles for
somebody who is interested in those,
that wasn't what I was looking for.
So I don't think project manager really
comes up very often.
Right.
But you're managing a caseload is kind of
one big unconnected project or a bunch of
projects connected together.
Now walk us through this.
Walk us through the transition.
What were the hardest parts of moving away
from this thing that you just went to
school for a long time and practiced and
into this other world of technology?
Yeah.
Um,
I felt behind in the world of technology.
I,
it wasn't anything that I was using in
my clinical, uh, career at the time.
Um,
AI was just coming up and it was,
you know, um,
I really had to learn some things
independently and, and on the new job too.
Um, so tech was something I, I didn't,
I didn't know too well, um,
at the time.
And then, um, yeah,
I also think like the people asking why
was another hard part.
Um,
That I think a lot of PTs that
are looking or any health care workers
that are looking to get out of the
field get that question a lot, too.
But, yeah,
it was something that I was I was
ready to do.
I was you know,
I had made that decision and I wasn't
going to look back.
So, yeah.
Was there an emotional component of having
to tell people that you were now sort
of I mean,
this is a little bit of an identity
change, right?
Were this thing and now I'm going to
be when I sort of stepped away and
stepped into whatever the heck it is that
I do.
I'm still not a hundred percent sure.
Um,
there was a little bit of an identity
shift.
Did you, did you feel that too?
Yeah.
You know, I had to take like the,
the letters off.
I didn't have to,
I took the letters off my name on
LinkedIn, like at the end, um,
no more PT, DPT.
And I was like, Whoa, um, that's weird.
But I wanted to frame myself in a
more, you know, health tech ready way.
And I,
I took those letters off and I,
you know, haven't put them back up.
So, um,
Talk about direct translation.
What skills from PT translated directly
into project management?
When you sat there, you're like, oh,
not only can I do this,
I've already done this.
Yeah,
definitely stakeholder management and not
to call patients stakeholders by any
means,
but your patients are people that you get
to know and you learn their language and
you learn their style on whatever it may
be to to treat them.
And I I took those
skills in managing people.
And I was able to manage teams in
what I do now.
And it's really about learning to get on
someone's level.
And you do that so well as a
PT every single day.
Sure.
Not even just every day, every hour.
Every hour.
I think as you're saying it,
I like playing with words or looking how
they work,
which is stakeholder might sound
superficial at first,
but
you have to have a stake in your
own health, right?
I mean,
I can't do any exercises for you.
So your job a lot of the times
is to get that person to do things
like buying in, follow through,
which I guess I'm guessing are a lot
of things that you have to do and
get to do as a project manager now.
Exactly.
Yeah, that's so right.
Yeah.
Let me pay the bills.
I want to say thanks to Empower EMR.
If your EMR slows you down,
it's costing you more than time.
It's costing you momentum.
Empower EMR is built for PTs who want
faster documentation, cleaner workflows,
and support that actually responds.
Find them online at empoweremr.com.
And US Physical Therapy,
built by PTs for PTs.
If you're looking for career growth,
mentorship,
and a place where your voice matters,
USPH helps you build a future without
burning out.
Find them online at usph.com.
Now,
where do you think education in physical
therapy falls short?
in preparing students and eventually
clinicians for something like career
flexibility?
Is there something that it falls short on
them?
What else could we add?
Yeah,
I went to PT school a while ago
at this point.
I graduated in twenty seventeen.
But like I said earlier,
things have changed.
Like there's so much new tech out there.
I think technology and health care is one
thing that we never learned.
It wasn't a class we took or anything,
but I think that would be a great
course curriculum.
I think.
Non-clinical opportunities,
while that's probably not something they
want to push in PT school,
I think it's worth it to talk about.
I think a PT isn't just a PT
in the clinic.
A PT can be a PT anywhere.
Now,
you've said physical therapists or
healthcare providers need to expand how
they define impact.
What does that mean in real terms?
What does that mean to you?
Well,
I think a lot of PTs think if
I'm not treating patients,
if I'm not making people better directly
with what I do every day,
then I'm not making a difference in
anyone's life.
And that is far from the truth.
Where I work now is a health tech
company,
and I change the lives of thousands of
nurses every single day without ever
touching them or meeting them even.
So redefining that word impact,
how can I make an impact on people
and in the world
I think that's a question worth asking.
Yeah.
I'll do the podcast live at PT programs
and I'll start by sort of asking this
sort of weird question.
I'm like, hey,
I have a degree in physical therapy,
but I haven't treated a patient in this
many months or years.
I'm not in academics and I'm not in
research and I'm not in management.
Am I an actual physical therapist?
And then I say,
now I'm gonna do something.
I'm gonna interview a bunch of people.
And then I wanna know the answer until
after we're done.
And then I usually just ask,
did your answer change from beginning to
end?
Because of something that you just said,
which is,
If I put an idea out from Alana
that then goes and changes someone who
changes thousands of people,
was I part of the change?
And I think if we look at it
that way,
you can see what impact can actually be
or how far impact can actually travel.
Right.
Yeah, that's great.
For someone listening who feels stuck,
I don't want to overwhelm people,
but what would you suggest the first step
be to exploring something different?
What's one action you'd say, okay,
first of all, breathe in out, okay,
and then do this?
I would sit down and open up a
word doc or take a notebook out and
write down all the skills that you think
that you're good at,
regardless if it's related to PT or not,
write them down a whole list.
That's what I would do.
Yeah.
What would you put,
what are some of the different things you
had on your list or if you redid
that list today,
what would you put on there?
Yeah.
I think empathy.
That's something that I, um,
It's a skill I didn't learn,
but I developed in physical therapy and I
still use obviously to this day.
So I would say I'm empathetic.
I would say organizational skills.
I can organize anything.
Puzzle solving skills.
I would also put that's personal to me,
but yeah.
Okay.
You up for a quick game?
Sure.
Let's play rapid fire.
I'm going to throw out a phrase and
then you just answer.
So just rapid fire questions,
whatever comes to mind.
Cause you said,
I think PTs need to zoom out, right?
You want to zoom out your phrase,
not mine.
So we'll go rapid fire.
What's a skill every PT has,
but doesn't actually realize that it's a
skill and has value.
Empathy.
Um,
You are empathetic.
You treat patients every day.
Better career move, stay or pivot?
You have to pick one.
Pivot, always.
Coffee order that gets you through the
deadlines.
A creme brulee iced latte.
smart i'm with you on the ice uh
one linkedin habit that pts should start
tomorrow besides the obvious if you're not
on linkedin you should be so what's a
linkedin habit that people should start
tomorrow if you see somebody interesting
there connect with them whether or not you
know them whether or not you plan on
reaching out just send that connection
request one hundred percent agree uh
crossword or clinical puzzle what's harder
oh my gosh
A Sunday crossword is pretty hard,
but there were some clinical puzzles out
there I couldn't quite solve.
I'm good with words,
but crossword puzzles,
my brain doesn't brain that way.
All right.
We have a tradition on the show.
It is called the parting shot.
This is the parting shot.
One last mic drop moment.
No pressure.
Just your legacy on the line.
All right, parting shot.
If someone listening right now in
healthcare feels like their degree,
put them in a box.
I want you to look directly at the
camera or speak directly in the
microphone.
What would you say to them to change
how they see their career starting
tomorrow?
I would say,
I'm looking directly in the camera.
I would say the future of healthcare is
going to be determined by people who think
differently.
in systems and understand technology and
data and people and all that,
and not just by treatment techniques.
Yeah.
There's going to be a lot of room
for yes ands, I feel like,
in the world.
You can do this and,
or you can take this and apply it
somewhere else.
Right.
And that's why I say pivot instead of
stay,
because that next door may be the coolest
thing that you've ever done.
So open it.
I don't know.
I mean, the regret, I'd rather regret the,
you know, what do we say?
I'd rather regret the shot that you did
take and not the one you didn't.
That's what happens with you.
Any resources that you would suggest
someone can go look up after they're done
writing down and journaling that one page
like you suggested?
Is there something tangible you'd send
them to?
Yeah,
I think I don't know how often it's
been talked about.
But the non clinical PT is a great
resource.
And then they have like a newsletter,
a blog,
a job board that you can take a
look at.
So I would definitely start there.
Yeah.
Meredith's been doing great work for,
I mean, a decade, close to more.
Yeah.
Great work.
Alana, appreciate the insight.
I think what you do is terribly
interesting.
And here's the thing.
If we had a conversation for twenty
minutes and one other person found value
in this,
I'm glad we threw it on the Internet
and it found its way to them.
So thanks for this.
I agree.
Thank you.
That's it for this one,
but we're just getting warmed up.
Smash follow, send it to a friend,
or crank up the next episode.
Want to go deeper?
Hit us at pgpinecast.com or find us on
YouTube and socials at pgpinecast.
And legally, none of this was advice.
It's for entertainment purposes only.
See, Keith?
We read the script.
Happy now?