For healthcare students, figuring out what comes after graduation can feel like following a map with only one route. Lauren's career is a reminder that there isn't just one path and that the skills you develop clinically can take you much further than you might expect.

We sat down with Lauren to talk about her career journey, the clinical skills that have helped her most, and what she wishes she had known as a student.

I always knew I wanted to get into healthcare. I think a lot of us in healthcare had some sort of draw to it because we wanted to help people, wanted some stability, or had seen what being a doctor or dentist looked like and thought it was interesting. For me, I knew it was healthcare, but I didn't really have a strong pull toward one path or another. I did know that I didn't like blood very much, so that was sort of the one no for me.

In college, I was taking biology classes and doing some general prerequisites when I started having really bad migraines. I went to the student health center and was helped by a pharmacist when I had a prescription filled. She really put me at ease. It was my first time away from home, and I didn't really know how to deal with health challenges away from my family. This pharmacist made me feel comfortable and like I could come by and ask questions if I had them.

That experience really made me think strongly about pharmacy as a career. The more I looked into it, the more I was drawn to how close you could develop relationships with your patients and see them more often than just annually or when they were sick. I really liked that concept.

I think pharmacy students, and probably every specialty, has its own version of this, but in pharmacy specifically, it's very much like you choose community, you choose hospital, or you do a residency and do something that feels a bit more clinical.

I would really advise people to look at the blurry edges where those things meet. It's not that cut and dry in the real world. Just because you pick one lane doesn't mean you have to stay there forever. Because I thought those were the lanes, I went through pharmacy school with laser focus on the direction I thought I was going because I knew I wanted to do community.

I wish I had spent my school years thinking a little bit more about how I could explore. If I end up in community, great, but not everything has to be so laser-focused for you to reach that goal. I really wish I had explored when I had the chance, because once you get out of school, it feels harder to find those opportunities for exploration and people you feel comfortable asking for help.

I decided I wanted to find a new setting away from working at a big-box retailer right before I had a family. I was about to have my first child and started thinking about the schedule and whether working nights, weekends, and holidays was going to work with raising a family.

I didn't think I needed to completely leave clinical work. I just thought maybe a new setting might be the right thing. I happened to find a startup operating in Boston and New Hampshire and started working for them as a pharmacist in a telehealth capacity.

I was doing all the things I loved as a community pharmacist, but virtually—through chat, over the phone, or via email for people all over the country. I loved that because I was really distilling down that patient relationship piece and leaving behind some of the things I didn't love about community pharmacy. I didn't have to bill insurance. I didn't really fill prescriptions. I was just consulting with patients all day and answering their questions.

I worked in that clinical capacity for about a year before I started taking on non-clinical work and different projects. Once I did that, a lot of pharmacists internally at the company started asking me how I made that transition because they were interested in doing it too.

Then I started posting about it on LinkedIn and getting a lot of questions. I thought, “Maybe I should start doing this more formally and create content that can actually impact lots of people instead of having these one-off conversations.” Clearly, it was resonating with people. From there, the business transformed into a newsletter, a job board where I help people locate non-clinical roles that might fit their backgrounds, as well as coaching and education.

Communication.

It might surprise people because I don't think people always think of communication as a clinical skill, but it absolutely is. Communication is really the tie that strings so much of healthcare together. You're communicating with patients, other providers, and non-providers. Being able to communicate the same message at different levels to different people is such a valuable skill. It's something I really undervalued as a student. We had one communications course, and I thought, “Okay, we know how to talk to people.” But it is the skill that serves me all the time.

As a student, as nerve-wracking as it can be to talk to patients for the first time or talk to providers who have way more experience than you, I think it's really important to practice that as much as possible and put yourself out there and start conversations with people. The more you hone that skill, the better you'll be served later in your career.

One thing I notice about students (and really anyone who has gone through a rigorous educational path) is that we're good at spitting out information, but we're not always as good at thinking about the higher-level frameworks and beliefs that drive what we do and how we do it. A lot of healthcare professionals can explain why they got into healthcare and why they're passionate about it.

What sets a really good candidate apart is being able to think more deeply about how they view the healthcare system as a whole, what its flaws are, what drives their behavior and patient behavior, and how they think about working as part of a team. Instead of just telling me about a time you've worked with a team, think about what your overall philosophy is around teamwork and how you fit into a team.

I know those things sound kind of squishy, and I don't expect students to have their entire philosophy on life nailed down right out of school. But taking a step back and thinking about how you operate as a person and a team member—not just as a clinician who knows how to communicate clinical information—is really important. It shows a level of maturity and higher-level thinking that comes across in an interview. I don't think you can master it right out of school, but having a strong “why” and a strong philosophy around why you do what you do really comes across in an interview.

I'm most excited about the way we're going to harness data to help decision-making in a way that we've never seen before. We've always had access to data, although the quality and how recent it was could be questionable. Now we have more data than ever, and we've been trying to figure out what to do with it and how to make it usable.

I think we're finally on the cusp of understanding what that might look like for both providers and patients to actually make good, actionable, educated decisions around next steps. That really excites me. I think data without that context layer can be dangerous at worst and confusing at best. I'm excited to see how we can use it to drive better patient outcomes.

People probably think I'm super into AI, and I'm into whatever is going to help patients and healthcare providers move the needle. Whether it's AI helping put information together or humans being freed up to finally look at things from end to end because they have more time, I'm excited to see it happen.

I wish I had understood earlier that you never practice healthcare in a bubble. When I was in school, there wasn't really a separate track for understanding how technology layers into clinical decision-making and the patient experience. And to some extent, that's still not fully taught in school. There's good reason for that. You only have so much time, and a lot of it needs to focus on patient care, diagnostics, and the clinical fundamentals.

But I highly encourage people to find their favorite way to keep a pulse on what's happening in the industry. That doesn't just mean technology. It means regulation, reform, policy, new research, and what's happening across healthcare more broadly.

You don't have to learn everything at once. Pick a way you like to learn, whether that's podcasts, newsletters, or another format, and make sure you prioritize it. None of us practice healthcare in a bubble. We would love to just provide patient care and not worry about all the red tape, costs, pressures, and everything else happening around us, but it's important to understand what's going on and how it's going to impact you in your career.

It's so easy to think that the end of school is the finish line. You're done. But the learning doesn't stop. No one can keep up with everything, and I don't want anybody to think they have to. But keeping that learning muscle sharp is really important so that when something does impact you, you have the capacity to think critically about it. That's probably been one of the biggest lessons of my career.

There's no other time in your life when people want to help you more than when you're a student. I wish I had taken advantage of that more; having networking conversations, asking for small favors, asking to shadow someone, or simply asking someone if I could pick their brain about something.

People are really willing to say yes to students and help them out. I think LinkedIn is great, and the earlier you can establish yourself there, the better. It's not just about finding people. It's about having a way to keep track of the people you meet over time. Maybe you meet someone in person. It's much easier to add them on LinkedIn and contact them that way than to have their phone number floating around somewhere.

I'd recommend getting on LinkedIn and connecting with alumni. Let them know who you are and where you go to school. People are always excited to hear from someone at their alma mater and hear what's going on. But I also think in-person events are making a strong comeback. There's really no easier time to get involved than when you've got a bunch of friends around you that you can go with. Building a local network is important, and then you can use LinkedIn to establish your broader network.

I think students should take advantage of the opportunities they have while they're students. People are willing to help you, so ask questions, have networking conversations, ask to shadow someone, and find opportunities to explore. You don't have to have everything figured out.

Healthcare is constantly changing, and your career can change with it. Keep learning, stay curious about what's happening around you, and don't be afraid to explore opportunities that don't fit neatly into the path you originally imagined.

The learning doesn't stop, so keeping that learning muscle sharp is really important. And don't be afraid to build relationships. You never know where those connections or those skills might take you.