Do you need to go back and study something else to be able to pivot?
I’m probably not the one to ask. I started a grad diploma in sports physio when I was in private practice, made it through one subject, (research one 🥱), and thought wow why am I doing this?! Then a few years later I decided I wanted to do psychology, got through one subject, maybe two, and remember how much I hated working on appointment times and bailed 😅
So I asked someone who actually finished for you 😇
Belinda is a nuclear med technologist who now works in clinical research:
“I got seven years in and the work opportunities or the opportunity for promotion wasn’t really there. I wanted to grow more professionally, but there was a ceiling. It felt really stagnant.”
So she enrolled in a Masters of Health Management. Self funded, mostly online, 2.5 years part time (on top of a full time workload). She reckons it was ~$1k/subject and that she thinks was claimable on tax.
And when she finished it? Her job stayed the exact same… for another 7 years then she seconded into a research coordinator role.
How essential was the Masters to landing the secondment?
“I don’t think it was too essential to landing the job. I think it was essential in shifting my mindset of what was possible and what I could do. But the job itself, a lot of it is transferable skills or lived experience… I don’t think [my masters was] the winning ticket for me to get the job.”
So she got something real from it, just probs not the thing most people expect.
She got a room full of people who weren’t doing her job. Doctors from her own hospital, other people in imaging, a few physios, HR people with no clinical background at all, public health, aged care.
“it really opened my eyes to all the people who work within health.”
And on whether it was the first nudge towards pivoting:
“Yeah, it really was. It was just a nudge. It was just a taste of what I could do.”
What got her hired was the other thing:
“Definitely helpful. They’re the examples that come up in interviews or when you’re writing your selection criteria… those small projects that you are involved in as a clinician really take on a lot of power when it comes to making that next step.”
Anyways back to extra study - if you’ve got a tab open on a postgrad course right now, I’m not saying you should close it. Just get clear on what you’d be signing up for. If it’s the mindset shift and being amongst people who also want to do something other than their current job, that’s a real thing and it might well be worth it.
BUT if you’re buying it because you think it’s the thing that gets you hired, have a look at the evidence first.
Next: how to find the small projects you’ve already done, the ones Belinda says carry the weight.
This first went out to Post-MDT subscribers on 13 September 2026. You can read the original edition in the archive, or get the next one in your inbox.
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