Healing narratives: Discovering how healthcare and UX merge

I was never the kind of person who planned things, especially not something as important as my career. I was the kid in school who picked my subjects based on what my friends had chosen just so I could be in their class.

At university, whilst chatting with a lecturer about why I had chosen my sports science degree, she opened my eyes to the world of physical therapy. A job where every client would offer a different problem to solve, where I could be my own boss, and I would finish every day knowing that I had helped someone.

Fast forward twenty years and I worked in clinical settings worldwide, helping the general public ease their pain or working with professional athletes trying to maximise their performance. But I was burnt out, both physically and mentally. I needed a change.

Writing was always something that I had been doing on the side — both for pleasure and professionally — and I felt that I wanted to continue down this path and maybe get some remote work now that I was living in Spain. A 40-something-year-old who had last bought a cheap laptop back when the Spice Girls were topping the charts was now embarking on a career pivot into tech.

Having read a few articles about UX Writing and seeing if this would be a good fit, some lightbulbs started turning on in my head.

Google search — Top qualities of a UX Writer needed (2022):

Communication

Attention to detail

Empathy

Analytical skill

Problem-solving

Creativity

Grammar

Attention to detail

All of the above qualities were areas I felt that I had demonstrated in my time in healthcare. Yes, even grammar and creativity. When creating your website and email marketing campaigns, you need to know your ABCs. And when you’re treating runners who have just crossed the line after finishing their first marathon and are screaming in agony, you need to get creative about how to deliver an effective treatment!

For the first time in my life, I decided I would plan something; my pivot from healthcare to UX Writing.

While still working full-time, I absorbed as much information as I could about design principles and UX Writing in the form of blogs, books and forums. I researched the courses out there and decided on the UX Writing Hub’s Academy course, which was the only one that offered the chance to work on real-world projects.

As I did not know much about design, I signed up for a Figma UX/UI Design Essentials course on Udemy. In short, I immersed myself in this new world.

Throughout the study, even though I was getting to grips with Figma, Miro, working on design documents with other students in real-time (sorcery I tell you), I was pleasantly surprised with how much crossover there was in the working processes of healthcare and UX.

Both processes follow an almost identical path:

The SOAP protocol stands for subjective, objective, assess, and plan which can almost perfectly align with the design process.

We listen to what the problem is from the user’s perspective. We try and identify problems using our specialist knowledge. We come up with a plan to address the issues and we test them to see if they’re working, and amend them as we go.

Not just the structure of the processes were similar, but the emphasis was on putting the user first. Making sure that what we were implementing was meeting the needs of the users, and not just what we thought was necessary.

Here are four ways that healthcare and UX intersect based on my experience:

1) Advocating for the user, avoiding the dark arts.

In the early part of my career as a therapist, I took an interview to work aboard a cruise ship in their spa. On the interview day, there were around twenty spa therapists and we were put through our paces. At the end of the day we were asked to stand in a circle and announce a mission statement should we be asked to join the company.

On my turn, I announced that “I will always make sure the client receives the best care, attention and knowledge and that I won’t take advantage of my position to sell them unnecessary treatments or products”. On the bus the whole way home I couldn’t figure out why I was the only person present not to be hired.

Put the user first, not the business.

2) User-centred language, not talking jargon/tech speak. When I first started practising, I was so nervous — and also keen to counter the imposter syndrome of being a fully qualified therapist who was now charging money for my expertise — that whenever I was asked a question like “Why does my shoulder hurt more when I wake up?” that I would launch into a monologue that had no beginning, middle or end and was simply a word salad of the textbooks I had studied the years prior.

It took me time to learn how to simplify the message that I was asked to put across. Not only that, I had to learn to tailor my response depending on the type of person who was asking. Some people wanted detail, others wanted a simple analogy.

Keep it simple, remember who you are speaking to.

3) Having empathy for the user, meeting their needs and making sure that our actions are in their best interest. Clients would always ask me after a treatment when they should next come to see me. Unless there was a specific medical reason to advise them otherwise, my answer would always be “Come see me when you next feel ready”. My clients never felt pressured or like they were being sold to, and as such they trusted me. This will also be true in what you design. Clickbait might get you hits initially, but as a long-term model, it won’t last.

People will come back to designs that serve their needs.

4) Collaboration and imposter syndrome. One of the most profound learning experiences I had was when working with a medical team in a clinical setting, we were discussing a patient care program between a surgeon, a general practitioner, a consultant physician and little old me. I didn’t even know why I was in the room as I felt my area of expertise was way below that of my colleagues. As such I was keeping very quiet and nodding along when suddenly the surgeon asked me a question. “How best should we position the patient post-op?” I was stunned. Understanding my hesitancy to voice my opinion he followed “We are all experts at what we do, that’s why I am asking you this question. Between all of us we will give the patient the best care”.

Collaboration is imperative and never doubt your role or your ability to contribute, no matter what stage in your development you may think you are at.

On that note, I have been blown away by the kindness of strangers when asking for information or feedback. There is a wonderful network of professionals to be built in your local area or specific niche. Not to mention the huge resources online such as the IxDF and people who have successfully made the transition into UX can offer advice.

So what does all this have to do with you? OK, it’s great that we can transfer skills from our previous career if we’re thinking of moving into the world of UX but you kind of knew that already, right?

Whatever work experience you have, chances are there will be some kind of crossover into UX. Try and write down a few and practice articulating them in front of the mirror before you head out for the day. It’s a good exercise to do and will help you communicate them to potential employers when you land your first interview.

My next challenge now lies in obtaining my first full-time job. It will be a roller-coaster ride, I am sure, and the naysayers will point to the downturn in tech right now.

It won’t be easy and it will involve many rejections until somebody decides to take a chance on a 40-something-year-old embarking on a new career, albeit with a laptop from this century.

But it can be done if you plan well — prepare yourself with the knowledge, arm yourself with a portfolio that shows exactly who you are and how you work, and take the experiences and skills you already have and apply them to your new venture, whatever it may be.

What are you waiting for?