How To Shift From Running Away to Running Towards with Dr. Ruth Vo

👋 Sign up for our AMA here! June 2nd 2026 at 5:15 PST/8:15 EST

We talk with Dr. Ruth Vo about the real work behind a clinician career transition: getting honest about what is not working, resisting the sunk cost fallacy, and choosing a next best step with intention. 

Dr. Ruth shares the moment she stopped hiding behind a form in patient care and how that same mindset helps healthcare professionals stop running away and start moving forward with purpose (Hint: Hiring managers can tell and they only want one version).

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Resources:

Dr. Ruth's Linkedin (connect with her!)

Career Cliniq

Find the Clinician Transition (TCT) Here:

• TheClinicianTransition.com
• The Clinician Transition Linkedin Group
• The Clinician Transition Slack Community

Other Relevant Resources

• Beyond These Clinic Walls
• Collective Coaching

Connect with the hosts here:

• Emma Brady, PT, DPT
• Emily Kelly, PT, DPT

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Dr. Vaux

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Clinician Transition Podcast. This is Emily Kelly. I'll be your host today, along with my co-host, Emma Brady. Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening. We're happy to have you back. We have such a special episode today. I'm very, very excited about it. We have a great guest. Her name is Dr. Ruth Vaux, and she joins us all the way from Australia. She is very knowledgeable in career transitions and transitions in general. She herself is a clinician. She has a degree in dietetics, adult education, and very cool. She has a PhD in decision making, which is a perfect PhD to get to help folks who are wanting to do a career transition. She also now runs her own company, Career Clinic. And she has a book, which we highly recommend that you check out, which is specifically tailored to women called Your Next Career Step. And she's coming out with another book, which is also centered around her matrix and her survey, which we'll get more into in the podcast, called Stream Ahead to help you in the first part of your career transition. Hello, Dr. Ruth. Hello, Emma.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Emily, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Thank you so much for being here. Yeah, my pleasure. We're gonna get right into it.

Finding Confidence On Placement

SPEAKER_02 1:31

And what I want to start with is just delving into your story because just going through your bio, there is so much there. So I want to get all the way back to square zero. When what made you get into clinical care in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Yeah, I in my third year. So to become a dietitian, there's two options. You can do an honors program or you can do a master's. And I got the marks to get into the honors straight from school. But it wasn't until third year or four-year degree I realized dietitians worked in hospitals. I did not pick the profession because that's where I wanted to go. So it wasn't until the very last six months that we did any sort of placement. And our placement was broken up into food service, community, and 10 weeks of hospital work. And my two hospitals, much to my initial disappointment, was rehab and then a relatively middle-sized acute care. And I just saw it as a box to tick. I wasn't interested in inpatient work at all initially. But I think it really hit home placement for me because everything was so theoretical before that. And I just needed to get the degree done, as I'm sure many people can relate. You get it done, you walk through that gate, and then you start thinking about what you really want. But placement really highlighted that I could apply all this theory into real life human relationships and care. And it was my first clinical placement that I managed to gain some confidence and shine to the people that mattered. I always tell students at our lecture that placement is your first interview. And it definitely was for me, and it managed to lead to immediate work post completing the degree. So I was one of the very lucky ones that was a student Friday and was a paid employee in a hospital on Monday. Um, and I thought, well, it wasn't my original plan, but who would say no to this opportunity? You may as well just try. It was a three-month contract, so I was gonna give it a go, but I never left hospital work.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

I see a lot of students when they first get placed struggle with that transition from the theoretical to the application. Did you feel that at all, too? Or was it more natural for you to go right into applying your learnings?

Ditching The Form To Be Present

SPEAKER_00 4:08

I think I was very nervous about knowing enough and remembering all that we were taught. And I think whenever I survey students now, it's one of the main fears you have, right? Just not being able to bring it to the forefront when you need it. So I felt all those feelings. I remember this moment where I it was like a switch that flipped, where I felt, I can't do this, this is hard, I'm nervous, I won't know what to say. And, you know, when you're learning the ropes of the initial assessment with any patient or client, and you've got your form and you've got your pen. This is this is, you know, 22 years ago or something when it's not electronic, and you're filling out things manually, and you're like, okay, so the next question would be, and I need to collect this data and I need to do this test. It felt so robotic, and I hated it. And I felt like my mind was so caught up with saying the right thing that it was interfering with my ability to really be present. So I did this one thing that changed the game for me, that changed the trajectory of learning from experience. Because that's really where we do the most learning, right? From the actual doing. And I got rid of my assessment form. I got rid of pen and paper. The only thing I noted down was was a patient's weight, if I physically recorded it there in the initial. And I tested this idea of okay, I have a human in front of me. They have all this information that I really need to get from them. But I think I'm gonna ask better questions and be listening better if I just not distracted by this pre this process that I feel glued to getting right. And sure enough, it just allowed me to hear the person. It allowed me for my mind to think faster. And I really loved that part of placement. And I I leveraged that. I I therefore jumped into opportunities that, yeah, I'll see that patient or I'll give that a go. Um, it's this incremental trust that it felt uncomfortable, but I can do the uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

It's interesting to me that, like, for some people, that form can become their safety blanket, but for you, it sounds like getting rid of like chucking the safety blanket actually made you feel safer and like more free. Is that true?

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Yeah, yeah. It was shackling me, but I still needed to take a risk and be okay with making mistakes. And I think there was just that little moment that happened multiple times where I'm like, what's the worst thing that can happen? It's just the way I describe it to students I supervised after. You forget a question, you forget to to ask something. What can you do then? Go quickly back and ask her. And that was the beautiful thing about a rehab setting was they're not going anywhere. And the pace suited learning for such a novice. And so they are the questions that I asked myself. It felt risky and it wasn't really the way things were done, but I knew I had to access presence. Like I I had to access and quieten the noise and the form and wanting to do the right thing the right way in this way was noise to me. And so I did something to quieten the noise and it built confidence quicker, I think.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

And I wanted to dig deeper into that because I feel like that it could I could be wrong, but I feel like that might be a theme throughout your career trajectory and that skill that you're learning to jump into the deep end head first. But take us to the next point of your journey then. So you were a student, you figured out how to do that really well, and then you got offered a job.

Early Contracts And Interview Lessons

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Yeah, offered a job in a it's a metropolitan hospital, and I remember it was the neuro ward and the vascular colorectal ward. And um I I remember the personalities of those first, those two rotations, the really rigid, strong personality nurse unit manager of the stroke ward and how established stroke processes and protocols are, and needing to slip into that, deal with a really forceful personality. And I remember meeting my now husband on the vascular colorect award. So it was a ward romance that the ward clerk, the physio, the nurses were all cheering on, much to my ignorance that he was into me. But I thought he was just a really nice, really nice doctor who was just treating everyone so nice. He treated the cleaners the same as he treated the fellow on the team he was on. And I thought, oh, he's really nice and friendly. So that was memorable, but I was at that hospital for 18 months, just going from short-term contracts. Finding permanent full-time work was really rare back then as a new grad. It was something that often came at least a year to two years in. So that was normal for me. I didn't think that was an issue. I had a paycheck, I was getting experience, and I was getting experience applying for interviews because when you get your first job without one, just a bit of trust, and hey, I'll give you three months. That's the max I can give you without an interview. You gotta prove yourself on a job. So I I did that and just waited for permanent roles to come through. And eventually one did, and my boss was really keen on me getting it, and I totally flunked the interview because I just had not done enough practice. And after that, I was determined, okay, who's gonna coach me on interviewing? Because I'm not doing that again. And I had amazing mentors within the department who sat me down and said, Yeah, there's a process for this, it's pretty predictable what type of questions you'll get. Don't assume that we know you when you're in there. And so I practiced and um I was determined to get you know every job I went for after that. But I followed the boys. So that took me away from that. That took me away from that role, and I headed to Sydney where I am now, and I tried something new actually.

Toxic Fit And The Cost

SPEAKER_00 10:24

It was clinical, but it was outpatient. And I mean not knowing that I was going to work in hospitals, I actually did personal training course at night in my first year out in uni. And I've ended up leveraging that and getting a job in this outpatient service, which was for older persons doing strength training. And I was their first outpatient dietitian. Um, and it was run by a geriatrician, and that was different, it was new, and they I got that role, and that was really interesting, but a really bad fit for who led the team. And I lasted eight months there after basically clearly appearing miserable on the job. And I got to the point where I had to make this hard decision, talk about being in a deep dan. Do I be truthful and transparent about how miserable I am because he's asking and it's clear? Or do I lie self-preservation, which would be totally understandable, and just look for something else? It was really toxic in terms of his micromanaging, and it was very condescending. Uh, and everyone else agreed, but they were like, well, we'll just deal. And I was I was getting Monday itis. Like I was literally, I'd never called in sick when I actually wasn't sick before, but that job brought that out of me because I couldn't bring myself. It was affecting my relationship because the weekends were so miserable, because I had to go work on Monday. So I told him in really professional ways, but in his unprofessional way, he demanded my resignation there and then. And I was out of there after two weeks. Which meant I was unemployed and I was out of the system. Now, here in in Australia, if you're in the public health government run system, long service leave will continue no matter where you work. That was a break in my service at about three years. Um, because of him. Fortunately, I've had another job in a hospital where I was there for eight years after that.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

So you you mentioned that there is like a fork in the road where you could have chosen the self-preservation route and you had this big decision to make.

Speaking Up Versus Staying Silent

SPEAKER_02 12:39

What helped you make that decision, or how did you go about that?

SPEAKER_00 12:42

I looked at what it would cost me to try and keep up appearances, and I wasn't very good at that. It was my desire for like an authentic way of showing up meant that it was painful to pretend. And I looked at how it was impacting my relationship, and I I asked myself, what will it cost me to stay silent? And what will it cost me to speak up? Will I regret speaking up? I didn't know he was gonna do that. He actually can't do that. I could have really challenged it, but who wants to spend more time with him? And yeah, it was that the right thing for me in that moment was to not be silent. Everyone else was, and I totally respected the decisions. But for me to not give some feedback around the mismatch of his, I framed it as management style. And there were two conversations. The first one was I gave him why I'm not my normal self. And so I said, I'm in meetings, I I find when you do this or approach it this way, this is the way it makes me feel. And then and then he took that feedback and said, How am I doing, Ruth? Like in a really manipulative way, as like really condescending, as like, you think I'm not doing this right? Well, let me show you how I can. But it's the whole sentiment, like the presence that he brought with him. And then I thought, okay, I tried that way. Um I'm gonna indicate that it's not the right fit. I'm gonna look for work. And it in other people's opinion, that might have been the wrong thing to do. But I was it was like that in the moment decision as well. Like I actively was looking for other work. I did not expect him to turn around and say, Well, I don't want anyone here who doesn't want to be here. I expect your resignation, you'll be gone in two weeks. That was a relief, but no regret. It was really affecting my well-being. You know, it's really nothing has ever affected it in that way since then.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Is that, now that you've been through that experience, is that a trend that you can see more clearly when it happens to others?

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Yes. I can appreciate when you're sensing something is not a good fit anymore, that you can double down on just keeping the status quo so if things don't get worse. And for some people I can see why that would work in a temporary way, like to get your ducks in a row and to figure out and get some clarity of what is the next step because there is no buffer. There is no the risk tolerance for what if it goes this way or that way, um, is different. And that's what I think about career decision making is like people's situations are unique in terms of all the moving parts and variables that would make what is the right way to approach the dissatisfaction or misfit that you're experiencing right now. And so I don't think there is a wrong or right way. I do think though that change can be hard and it's felt at a very visceral level, and fear is real, and I think that's what's universal is that when something has been what you know for so long, uh, or it has a level of security to it, that would be hard to let go. The thought of change is hard, and I think that's what we can't shy away from. The discomfort and the the feelings that come with change, regardless of what that change might be.

Emma Brady 16:24

I think Emily and I run into that a lot where we get messages from our community, and they'll say, Hey, I know I want to make a switch or you know, try something new, but I don't know where to start. Can you help me? And as much as I would love to do that, that's typically way outside the scope of a 30-minute, you know, coffee chat. So could you tell us sort of about the the system you've built and how you support people through the what you're saying, the decision making and and how to choose what's next?

A Framework For Career Decisions

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Yeah, sure. I think the first place I get people to start with, or or the the first mistake, is often just going to um, well, clearly I just need a different job. And they go to searching jobs. Definitely want to pull you back to looking and being able to evaluate what it is about where you are that's no longer working. You can have the sensations, you can have the feelings, you can have the consequence of how the dissatisfaction or misalignment is making you feel, or what your life looks like, but to get that into actual a really clear idea of what is not working and why, before you think about what will work better. And I think that's step one. But even engaging with that, you have to consider the feelings that come up around change, whether it's what's interfering with doing that evaluation really clearly. I would go back to actually doing a little bit of mindset work and clearing the mind about accepting that you're gonna have fear, and there's gonna be fear around what is the right way, or what does someone with disqualification do? What should they do? What does success actually look like here for someone with all my experience and all my qualification? And there is a pull towards preserving what you've built and working with again, acknowledging that feeling a sense of loss about what change or what change might minimize the sense of loss is where I start. That whole sunk cost piece is a really big one I have found where you're like, I need to change, and you get the people that want to just race out of there and that they're not gonna dwell on everything they have and whether it would be wasting it by changing. But I think a lot of us are weighed down by that idea of but change would be wasting what I've built, right? And I definitely experienced that that bias, it's a cognitive bias that we're all vulnerable to. But it was that moment where I shifted to this future-oriented where there's nothing I have built and gained in terms of knowledge, expertise that I can't take with me and utilize in some other way. It's not lost if I'm no longer applying it in this setting or this context under this title. It's it's coming with me. And then and that becomes the later task of where can it be best used or which parts do I want to use? Not assuming that we want to keep applying the skills that we are, where we're unhappy. There are some things that we can say, that's great, that that works for a season. I don't want to develop that further. So the thinking part, but also taking stock of what you have to offer right now without having a direction to apply for it. I call it like an asset stock take, where you work out where are you right now and what do you care about? What are your profession-specific knowledge and skills, your transferable skills, your life experiences that that you have to bring with you? And what is your value and what where could you take that comes later? But taking a stock take of what you have. Some people do that in retrospect because they've found a job and now that they work out what do they have to offer. But deciding on what's next is is much better to do when you have a sense of what you have to offer, and then we can work out how you want to use that. And then I would say your compass. This is probably the most crucial part. We we have people who will jump into solutions mode, like we we can all do, but that's like having a new patient and or new presentation and not doing an initial on them and just going straight to prescribing an intervention. We wouldn't do that clinically. So let's not do it with our own careers. So I was when I started Career Clinic, I was fundamentally driven to respect the messy, complex, moving parts of an individual's world and how how career decisions sat inside that. And rather than separate to it. Like sometimes in workplaces we're asked to frame it that way. And so the compass piece of how I help people make decisions is factoring in your purpose, getting clear on that, your resources, and looking at constraints as a way to channel something rather than limit you. The people you want to work with or for, the environment that helps you bring out the best, the actual capabilities that you have and you want to use. And get clear on what's not working around those domains and how do they need to be prioritized going forward. And then you've got the technical pragmatic steps, which is Often what people jump to is where let's go to job searching and fixing up my resume or CV, informational interviews, the prototyping stuff, that's all absolutely crucial. But there's this upstream work that I think is valuable to do first.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Um, what do you see people? How can I frame this best? If someone has skipped all the messiness and they're kind of going through um the tactical part of it, if they've skipped all that, what does that look like? Or how can someone know maybe I should go back and do some more soul searching?

Stop Chasing Titles Start Choosing Purpose

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Yeah, I think if they've skipped that bit, then they're using job titles and carefully worded advertisements really to pull at something. Now, that process isn't unhelpful. It it really is. I spent time, I got so curious about what are other people doing that started from where I started. I find that's such a um rewarding process. So it's not that job titles should be disregarded or job applications ignored, it's that you might find yourself falling into the trap of being lured by a well-written ad, because that's what they are. Someone was paid to make that alluring and attractive, and not realize, well, which parts of this potential role actually take the boxes that my past experience has told me this is what really is essential. These are my non-negotiables, this is the best way I want to show up. This is the purpose I really want to lean into right now. If you've not done that, you could be back where you started within a couple of years, maybe even less than that.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

And I I think it's something that you and I touched on on your podcast, where like Emma and I, when we interview people, it's pretty apparent on the interview too if they have or have not done that soul searching. Um it and do you do you see that same trend? In other words, yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Yeah, it's that we we talked about how people it's obvious when someone's running away from something versus stepping into something very purposefully. And it's not about getting the first job out of clinical right as if it's the the most perfect aligned step. I like to think that it is about evolution, that things change as incremental and there's sideways steps, and there's something to be gained by a step, informed step. Yeah, it's definitely that piece of pausing enough to realize whatever I do next can't be running away from something. It has to be stepping forward into something. And you in your experience, both of you, you've told me it's really obvious when someone's running away. Like they'll take anything other than what they've been in. Yeah.

Emma Brady 24:58

I hear, go ahead, Emma. The sunk cost fallacy comment was super interesting and relevant because if you think about, and also the comments about you're not, you're using our clinical skills in a different way. So that's why Emily and I are such big sticklers on saying non-traditional, because that's sending the message of I'm celebrating my background and I want to use it in another productive way versus, oh, I'm non-clinical, I'm completely separating. That's it's just this tiny semantics change. And then with the some cost fallacy, there's a reason we have Dr. Ruth on here and we promote other professional coaches. And we've said this before, you've already invested so much of time and energy, and you may or may not have loans. You most likely will really benefit from having professional help. So find someone who will help you so that that quote unquote sunk cost doesn't linger on longer than it needs to. And you heard Dr. Ruth explain it. There's a very methodical system. It's not like you show up for the boards just willy-nilly, hoping it all works out. You had a study plan and you had study partners and you bounce things off and you learn this week two, you're in this week three. It should be a very similar process for a journey, I should say, not a process, like we're on the bachelor, but it should be a very, very similar experience for this project as well. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Like we're methodical in in all the ways that we're trained. I think I think there's a lot to be gained from that. But I will say this the caveat is that I find just running a business with health professionals in mind, many of us are very risk-adverse though, in the sense of where the threshold is for taking a step. And and I'll put my hand up for that myself. It's something I'm always wanting to challenge. So it's not about a perfect right step, it's the next best step. And that's it needs to get you out of overanalysis into action because you'll get way more information from some sort of sort of action toward a new direction, towards a new role, than you will from researching and thinking about it on the spot for the next 12 months.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

And I also find I have found this in my own thought patterns too, but if you stay just in your head and in the theoretical, it's easy to make assumptions about other opportunities out there and how risky they might be or might not be until you really do the work to figure out what your best next step might be. Yeah, absolutely. For sure. You talked a little bit more about like how you have to go upstream and how this matrix really fits in the middle of the messiness.

StreamAhead And The Eight Work Streams

SPEAKER_02 27:46

I want to hear a little bit more about Stream Ahead and how that really helps people get clarity in that first phase where they need to do a lot of soul searching.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

Yeah, so StreamAhead is a a survey that maps your interests within the mission of healthcare. And it's really important that's clear. I celebrate all the ways that we can show up and serve and make a difference. The main idea I'm challenging with StreamAhead is that there are just a few, but there are so many ways we can use our skills and apply them to make a difference. Because we all want meaningful contribution. That's really one of the core drivers of most health professionals. But the challenge was that StreamAhead was trying to solve and tries to solve for the individual, was that those ways, those pathways that end up being roles or job titles are not very visible to all of us because we all land in bubbles and some of us stay in those bubbles for a while. So we're only seeing just a few opportunities around us. And so often, after interviewing so many health professionals around the world, and also the diagnostic piece for actually that generated the idea for Streamer Head, it was reliant upon those few tap-on-the-shoulder conversations in the corridors or the the random messages or emails. Oh, have you heard about this? A thought of you. No one has access to all that all the time. And it was just, it's it's it was random and opportunistic that those people would realize I could do that. Like I even know when I went to specialize, it took my then manager to tap me on the shoulder and say, you know, I think you could do that. Like I wasn't senior, I wasn't specialist, but the role was being re-revamped and to that, but I was sort of temporarily in it for three months. And I'm like, I can't, that's possible. And I just remember being so reliant upon someone showing me what's possible. And that's what Stream Ahead does. It takes you with your interests, and it says, job titles are downstream of something more fundamental. That fundamental is what problems you want to work on, what kind of contribution feels meaningful. So I took it up and I created Stream Ahead that maps you against eight work streams. Some of them you'll know. Um, but then it obviously the report uh fleshes those top work streams of yours that you rate highly in into real life roles or or pathways. And I just think interest was a way to capture a way to steer your career direction. You have all the other moving parts of how much money I really need to earn or my time I had to give my job, and they're all absolutely crucial when you're figuring this out. But to start with going from what else is possible to try and narrow it down, it just helps make good on that ongoing exploration and something to narrow down where that curiosity and that work that soul searching can do when you have a general direction that's it's bigger and more visible than what you started with. And sometimes that's all it takes. It's just that the light switch goes on like, wow, that's cool. Didn't realize that when being interested in this would mean that whole pathway opens up or that combination. None of us work in one work stream. All of us have combinations. So really trying to map that and help reveal that

Resources Season Finale AMA And Reviews

SPEAKER_00 31:27

to people.

Emma Brady 31:27

Well, speaking of light switches, you've given us and our listeners so much to think about and really grateful for the work that you do for people who are looking for new options and need a helping hand to direct that focus and do it, like we were saying, in a methodical way, so we can do it the smart way and make sure that it ends up being the right move for us. So thank you for for all that you do and for your time today. Is there anything that Emily or I or the community can do to help you?

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Yeah, no, just you can check out careerclinic.com. Um, and if you're connect with me on LinkedIn, I'd love to connect with you and check out the stories that I share on Evolving in Healthcare podcast. But no, I'm grateful to you to you, Emma and Emily, for having me on the show and collaborating in this way. This network is really special.

Emma Brady 32:23

And we'll put all of those resources in the show notes. And then another thing we're gonna post in the show notes is this is our second to last episode of the season, and our season finale is going to be a live AMA. So you'll be able to see it through all sorts of ways on how to register, including the show notes. So please join. That's gonna be really fun. Um, and and um it'll be a fun experiment. We'll see what happens. And then, as always, if you enjoyed this, please consider giving us a positive review. Um, and then if you have any constructive feedback, please DM us and we'll do what we can to fix it. Thank you, and we'll see you for our season finale soon.