In this episode of CCIM, host Elise Putt speaks with Dr Jackie Rabec about her journey from clinical medicine to prominent product roles in HealthTech and beyond. Dr Rabec, originally from South Africa, started her non clinical journey via an MBA at the University of New South Wales' Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM), with an international exchange term in New York. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she grappled with an existential crisis and considered returning to clinical work in South Africa, but ultimately forged on to find her niche and zone of impact in the world of tech.

Her professional non-clinical journey has included roles in early-stage startups and scale-ups, including but not limited to working as a data & partnerships manager at Prospection and head of product at Heidi Health. Today, Jackie is a product manager at Google on the Payments Identity Team. She discusses the significant adjustment moving from smaller companies to a large corporation such as Google, where the product impact is at a much greater scale, with a correlatory increase in the number of cross-functional stakeholders & org complexity.

She broke into healthtech product management specifically because she found the field to be challenging and impactful. She initially did pro-bono work for a friend building a ward task management app for doctors in South Africa and took product management courses at NYU. Her early non-clinical ventures also included volunteering with Helpful Engineering to develop 3D-printed nasal pharyngeal swabs, to address COVID-related supply shortages. Dr Rabec utilised platforms such as LinkedIn and Seek, while actively networking with people that had trodden the non-clinical path before her, to uncover opportunities to break into the world of tech.

Jackie credits her mother, a doctor working in rural South Africa, for inspiring her initial interest in medicine. Her own clinical years were filled with hands-on experience in public hospitals in South Africa. Despite initially considering careers in journalism and fine arts, Dr Rabec's path led her to medicine before moving towards business ventures and non-clinical careers. Her decision to pursue an MBA in Australia was driven by a desire for greater impact on healthcare systems, more lateral creative thinking in her day-to-day, varied longer term career opportunities and flexibility to travel the world whilst pursuing a highly engaging job.

Jackie shares valuable insights on transitioning from clinical medicine to other fields, highlighting the importance of courage, self-assessment, introspection, and building a supportive network. She advises adopting a mental model of directional decision-making and being comfortable with ambiguity as key factors in pursuing varied career paths. When asked about an alternate career, Dr Rabec envisions roles intersecting health tech and global health, alongside personal interests in meditation instruction, painting, and being a dog mom.

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The CCIM Podcast is part of the Talking HealthTech Podcast Network, offering the latest in healthcare delivery, innovation, digital health, and more. Discover the network at www.talkinghealthtech.com/podcast/network.