Podcast #205 – Determination and Serendipity to Become a Virtual Patient Trainer with Sarah Harford
Description:
This week, I have a great interview with Sarah Harford. Sarah is a member of the Career Pivot membership community and was recently hired as a virtual patient trainer for a medical device company. By the way, this is a position in a job that didn’t exist before COVID.
She had been employed as an occupational therapist in a psychiatric hospital that left her stressed out and really needed a change. I want you to hear her story about her very convoluted journey during the time of COVID. She had lots of opportunities to just give up and stay as an occupational therapist, but she didn’t.
In the end, a bit of serendipity happened. More importantly, she was open to it. She landed a position that did not exist before the pandemic and it married multiple skills from being an occupational therapist and from her previous career as a massage therapist. It’s a great story I want you to hear and hopefully be inspired by.
This episode is sponsored by Career Pivot. Check out the Career Pivot Community. Make sure and pick up my latest book, Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life Third Edition.
Now on to the podcast…
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Sarah:
I was working as an occupational therapist in a psychiatric hospital in Vermont and had been doing that for just shy of two years I have been there.
Marc:
And what kind of facility was this?
Sarah:
The unit that I worked on the whole hospital was a psychiatric hospital with different levels of care. The unit that I was mainly on was a locked unit, involuntary patients almost entirely. We would occasionally have somebody who was voluntary, but most were involuntary. And they had a mix of diagnoses. Essentially, it was the people in the state of Vermont and surrounding states who needed the highest level of care and have generally been in this system for quite a long time.
Marc
So in some ways, it sounds like when COVID hit that was like a prison. So what got you to say I’ve had enough I want to do something else?
Sarah:
I had been thinking about doing something else anyway, even before COVID. Because I just found personally that it was just emotional, it was so emotionally draining. And so I just found it really exhausting to be working in that kind of a setting. It was very unpredictable. I sort of never knew what I was walking into every morning. I enjoyed working with the patients for the most part, but it was just a difficult environment to be in.
I would say most mostly, the environment was tough for me. And I also had a really long commute of an hour each way. So I found that when COVID hit, I was already sort of at my maximum stress level. And then when COVID hit the added layer of stress, because of that, just feeling worried, working in the middle of a pandemic, and having to mask up and all of those added precautions. It was like the last straw that kind of broke me and I felt like if I don’t get out of here soon, I’m really gonna, I felt like my house was really starting to be affected, and I needed to make a change.
Marc:
So why don’t just go get another occupational therapist job?
Sarah:
Two reasons. One, I live in western Massachusetts, where there happened to be quite a few occupational therapists. So it’s kind of saturated in this area, which means there aren’t a lot of OT positions, to begin with. And with COVID, there were even fewer. So I wasn’t finding anything that was appealing that was full time. So there, there were some, like per diem positions and things like that, that I would come across. But I knew that any position that I went into, that was inpatient, or long term care facility or something like that was going to be equally as stressful as the job that I was trying to leave. And I didn’t want to put myself in that kind of position. I just didn’t want to move into another position that I was going to want to leave again in a year, a year and a half.
Marc:
Yeah, I’ve got to believe that the kind of work you’re doing is in the middle of a pandemic has got to be just incredibly stressful because it’s a very hands-on job. And I have a very good friend back in Austin, who’s a director for one of the major Senior Living companies. She runs several facilities, and it’s just incredibly stressful. And she’s not even in the direct care.
Sarah:
Yeah, it is. I mean, you’re just sort of needed all the time, and constantly responding to whatever those needs are. And so that just gets really tiring after a while.
Marc
But you’re also masking up? Yes. You’ll hear when I do an episode where I am gathering interviews with different people who filled out the survey and the one gentleman talked to me about he’s selling snack foods. He’s created a snack food line. And he’s selling it at farmer’s markets. But he’s all masked up. And so he can see people’s facial expressions. And he has to remind himself to smile because people can see the smile through his eyes. But when you’re all masked up, and what you’re doing is a very, very relational job.
Sarah:
Yeah, really hard. It was also really challenging because many of the patients that I was working with, had some level of paranoia to begin with, because they had the schizophrenia diagnosis where they’ve had, just really intense trauma histories. And it felt awful to be masked up with them because I knew that that was, that was just making their experience that much harder. So yeah, on many levels, it just became harder when the pandemic hit, for sure.
Marc
So your first choice was to go in what direction?
Sarah:
I live in an area where there are a lot of colleges and universities. And before I became an occupational therapist, I worked, I worked at a small vocational school. And I was working in I worked in the admissions department, and I enjoyed that work, I really enjoyed working with students, and I liked the environment, you know, being an environment where people were learning, there was just a vitality about the environment that I liked. And so I thought, you know, there are so many colleges and universities in this in this area, and there, and I enjoyed that work before, I should, you know, thought about maybe exploring some possibilities within higher education. And so I started going down that road, just sort of really researching what kinds of things might I do with my background, and my, the skills and the experience that I had, and I kind of looked at two different directions. So one was research, which I had thought about as I was going through occupational therapy school, again, I think it’s just that idea of, you know, it’s, I have a sort of curious nature. And so the idea of research has always been kind of appealing. And then the other was more student services-related. And because I have an occupational therapy background, I started exploring the possibility of going into Disability Services. And so I had quite a few good networking, kinds of experiences and things before COVID head, and then COVID hit. And then all of a sudden, I couldn’t go have a meeting with someone or, you know, grab a coffee or whatever. And so that whole experience changed. And I began to try to figure out how to continue that exploration and networking and relationship building. And was able to do it somewhat over zoom and, and things but it was certainly harder. And of course, because of the pandemic, higher education was just everybody in higher education was incredibly stressed out because of the effects that the pandemic was having on the institutions. And so I just, it became apparent after a while that this was going to be a difficult road to go down at that time.
Marc:
So how did it feel to say, oops, this isn’t gonna work?
Sarah
It was hard to come to that conclusion because I felt like I had already put a lot of effort into going in that particular direction. And so it took me a while to make the decision to stop going in that direction, even though I knew that it was probably not a good way to be trying to go at that moment in time. So I would say it took me a couple of months, really, before I decided, Okay, I really need to pull back and think about other things that I could do.
Marc
Yeah, this is what makes your story unique. In the fact that you headed down a direction, very logical direction and you have you had a significant amount of what we call sunk cost. You put a lot of effort into it. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And it’s, and as we all know, higher Ed’s in chaos, and will continue to be in chaos, probably for another year plus, so what was your decision to say, Okay, I’m not going to do higher ed, what am I going to do next?
Sarah
I think, um, I think the pivotal moment where I made that sort of, as that decision clicked for me was, I had an informational interview with the director of I’m gonna forget her title now. But I think she, she’s the Director of Student Services or something. And she had also been an occupational therapist and moved into higher ed in a similar way that I was trying to. And I just had a very candid conversation with her about how things were in higher ed right now and what she thought about this idea that I had about trying to shift gears and move into that space. And she told me that she, I mean, she was clear she was so kind, I thought, by the way, to have even agreed to have that informational interview with me because she was clearly overworked at that point had like they had had to lay off some people and she basically absorbed their jobs and didn’t look like they were going to be rehiring for those positions anytime soon. I mean, she expected to just have this incredibly intense workload for probably a few more years, at least. She just didn’t paint a particularly bright picture. And I started thinking, you know, if, you know, pandemic aside, if this is the reality of higher ed right now, do I really want to go into another position where I’m going to end up stressed out and burned out because of the workload and just the stress of every all the changes that are happening? And I decided I didn’t just am not in a position in my life where I want to move toward more stress.
Marc
So what direction or what was your, what were your next steps?
Sarah
That informational interview made me start thinking about it because she asked me a question, just in terms of my experience and stuff about just some specific things that I might need as a director of disability services in higher ed, and one of them was assistive technology. And I started thinking about, you know, assistive technology, technology is a pretty interesting area of study. And I don’t have a lot of experience. I mean, certainly, I studied in school, but I haven’t had a ton of experience using the kinds of things that I would in a higher ed environment. And so I just started looking into that just out of curiosity, like, what, what, what does it entail to like, become certified in this or, you know, what kinds of opportunities might exist in that realm. And I just sort of serendipitously happened upon this position. That was for it was remote also, which was something that at this point I was interested in. But it was really kind of serendipitous, I stumbled upon this position on Indeed, as I was researching that was remote and not exactly adaptive equipment, but yeah, kind of, I suppose, treatment for people for patients who have lymphedema. And at that, I always just started reading, it piqued my interest, I was curious. lymphedema is something that I’ve been interested in, in the past. And before I was an Oto, as a massage therapist, and actually have a certification in manual lymph drainage massage. So I had some skills and some knowledge, and the OT background, those skills, and that experience really would have lent themselves to that position, I thought and so I just went ahead and applied and, and got a call, took about a month. I kind of thought I wasn’t going to hear anything. And then I did and the rest is history.
Sarah
Lymphedema is it’s a disease process where your lymphatic system is not working optimally. And it can happen for many reasons. Sometimes, people are born with a condition with primary lymphedema. But often it happens as a result of something else, like some sort of traumatic experience that does damage is the lymph nodes or the lymph vessel vessels. cancer or cancer treatment often can damage the lymph nodes. And as soon as you have once you have damage to the lymph nodes or the lymphatic vessels, they don’t, they don’t restore themselves. So once you’ve lost that function, you’ve lost that function. And what happens then is that you get swelling in the area of the body that is fed into or through those lymph nodes. So if you have damaged lymph nodes in your armpit, for example, then you will have swelling in your arm and hand. And so the company that I work for now makes a compression device that essentially uses air to compress areas of the body that needs some help moving that fluid out of the limbs or out of the area that swollen back into the circulatory system where bones so kind of a form of compression socks only more back.
Marc
What are you doing for them?
Sarah
So I am a virtual, I’m a virtual patient trainer. And so basically what I’m doing is telehealth visits for patients who have, they have gotten a prescription from their doctor for this device that my company makes, and they’ve received it or they’re about to receive it. And then I do a telehealth visit with them to teach them basically how to Don and doff the garments, which means how to put them on and take them off, and how to use the device and to review their prescription and how they’re, they’re meant to be using it. And sort of troubleshooting any trouble any problems that they’re having. And that’s what I do all day long. I meet with different patients, it’s, you know, lots of different patients from all over the country. I actually meeting with somebody next week, who’s in Guam. So that’s also been really interesting working with people all over.
Marc
And you’re doing this over what kinds of technology,
Sarah
Zoom and FaceTime are the two that we’re mostly using. We can also use Google duo, but so far, I haven’t had anybody opt to do that. Okay. Yeah.
Marc
And how do you like this?
Sarah
I like it a lot. I really, it’s interesting, because it’s, it’s like I’ve sort of come full circle back around to this I this. You know, this, this interest that I already had in lymphedema and lymphatic drainage, and hadn’t been using, I hadn’t been using that training or that skill and didn’t really think that it was something that I could necessarily do in a remote position. So it’s a, it’s a very pleasant surprise that I’m able to use those skills and that knowledge in the position and I really enjoy working with, I enjoy working with patients with empathy, lymphedema because often they lymphedema is not very well understood in our country. And so very often people have gone many years without really having adequate treatment. And so the swelling has gotten worse and worse, and it really has impacted their quality of life. And so this, you know, being able to really help people to use this device that’s actually going to make a real difference for them is very satisfying. It really feels good to be able to help in that way.
Marc
Yeah, I will add one other thing. Sarah, we see your post on Thursday nights and our what’s next group. And you look so much happier now.
Sarah
The other thing that is so apparent to me now that I’ve made this change is that I mean, I always sort of knew this, but I am a person that’s just sensitive to what’s happening in my environment. And so the fact that I now can control what’s happening in my environment, and can, you know, take a break when I need to take a break, and be in control of how my schedule stacks up day today? and not have lots of I mean, of course, there are sometimes things change along the way, and we adapt, and that’s fine. But it’s such a difference from being in a psych hospital where I just had no idea from moment to moment what might happen. And it’s Yeah, I just feel like my stress level has come down exponentially. So it’s great. Also, I have two cats that I get to snuggle with throughout the whole day, and I can make myself a healthy lunch. You know, I mean, there are many perks. So
Marc
So how many people do you see per day?
Sarah
I’m only about five weeks into the position. So I’m still building up. Ultimately, I will be seeing so for four to five a day is where is the optimal number? Right now? It just depends on the day, but I’ve only been seeing I think the most I’ve had so far is three next week. I have four scheduled one of the days.
Marc
How long is your typical session with someone?
Sarah
About an hour? Okay. Yeah, it could be a little more could be a little less depending on how much help people need. But
Marc
So Sarah, how did the community help you get through this? Because to some extent, you’ve, you went through a lot. You were stressed out at first, just because of your job and then you’re trying to make this pivot, and when you’re going in that kind of work. And to some extent, you put yourself in a position for the serendipity to happen. So how did the community help you with that?
Sarah
Yeah, many ways, I would say, and probably, primarily, what I found most helpful was having a consistent group of people that I could have a face to face with once a week, but also be able to reach out to my phone in between those meetings. If that would be helpful, which I certainly did. I talked to many, many of the community members by phone individually. But knowing that I could tap into the energy of a group of people who were all going through a similar transition and bumping up against similar kinds of frustrations, but were in different places in their transition was really helpful, because then somebody who had possibly, you know, been in a similar stage of change before could give me some advice, or, or even just a, even just those sort of moral support was hugely helpful because it’s, it’s, it can feel very isolating and a little hopeless at times to be on this path of trying to figure out what to do next, especially in the middle of so. So yeah, that was very helpful. And then just, you know, in concrete ways, I found that if I had questions about things, I could, you know, ask the community, and people would give me feedback. And that was really helpful. So for example, when I was first, exploring the idea of moving into higher ed and I was scheduling, informational interviews, or just networking meetings with people, I decided it would be helpful to have business cards. Actually, that came out of a presentation that was on one of our calls, and I can’t remember who it was. But I was struggling. I’m kind of a perfectionist when it comes to those kinds of things. So sort of struggling with what I should, what kind of verbiage I should use, and seems like I needed two different ones. And I was able to post what I was thinking, my sort of designs on the community website, and people were gracious enough to give me really helpful feedback. So those kinds of things were really helpful and just sort of kept me moving along. Like, I feel like if I wasn’t in the community, I could easily have stalled out at many different points along the way. And so it sort of kept my momentum going, and kept me hopeful.
Marc
Oh, so if you had one piece of advice or two, for people who are going to attempt something, what would you tell them?
Sarah
So I think now, in hindsight, I realized how very important it was that I was willing to stay open-minded about possibilities that might exist that I wasn’t aware of. Because of it, I realized, at some point, as I was exploring the higher ed direction, and sort of hitting my head against the wall, that it would have been easy to keep hitting my head against the wall for much longer than I needed to, because I had that investment already, and was feeling kind of attached to that. And so it was really important that I was able to step back and say, you know, maybe, I’m not going to keep putting this effort into this direction. And now is the time for me to just sort of step back and open my mind to what might exist out there that I would never even think to explore. And that ultimately is what made me successful in pivoting into something that I like was that open-mindedness and just the idea of exploring. And then the other thing was just from a very practical point of view, and of course, it’s always impossible to really know what got you in the door. But I, when I was applying for positions before I applied for this, the one that I ended up getting, I think in the same sort of way that I just described, I think I was a little too attached to all the things that I’ve done in the past, and that was reflected in my resume. So my resume was too long, too wordy,. Even though I had worked with to resume people to try to make it more targeted, it still felt rambley and not targeted enough. And when I applied for the position that I’m in now, I just decided, you know what, I need to let go of anything that had that that’s not really directly related to what I’m going to do that to what I would do in this position, and I just really pulled it down and made it very simple and straightforward. And I think that that was really helpful in getting me in the door.
Marc
Yeah, for those of us who have long, very convoluted careers, and a lot of people do, it becomes you have to learn how to let go of stuff. You really loved it. And it’s doesn’t make any difference anymore, or it’s not relevant for what you want now. And I wanted to also hit on what happened to you at your old job, right after you left.
Sarah
Yeah, right after I left, like right after I left a week or two after they laid off 85 people and shut down a bunch of programs. So yeah, and also had their first COVID positive case. So they had their first patient who tested positive for COVID. So that felt like good timing too.
Marc
Well, again, you had a lot of serendipity. Yeah. And that’s okay. Because it’s when you put yourself in a position for that to happen. It seems like oh, I just happen didn’t happen for a reason. And it’s a lot of it’s due to what you did, and, and the help you got. But the key piece is you kept moving forward. Yeah. And you had lots of opportunities to throw in the towel and say, I’m just gonna stay there. Which, and I can tell from looking at you on, on the various times we have, you are so much more relaxed now than you were two months, three months ago. Yeah,
Sarah
I actually, like feel like myself, again, I feel like when I was working at the hospital, I just, it was not a good fit for me, just from lots of different angles. It just wasn’t a good fit. And I was trying to, you know, sort of make myself fit into a position that just wasn’t me. So this is it’s just such an incredible relief when you don’t have to do that anymore.
Marc
Sarah, if someone wanted to reach out and touch you virtually, how might they do that?
Sarah:
Probably the easiest way would be to find me on LinkedIn.
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