Alexander Stone, DPT, CSCS — Patient Engagement Content Manager

Patient Engagement Content Manager — Alexander Stone

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Save 40% on Unlimited Medbridge CEUs with promo code TNCPT!
Save 40% on Unlimited Medbridge CEUs with promo code TNCPT!

This spotlight is on Alexander Stone, a PT who is now Patient Engagement Content Manager for our favorite CEU provider, MedBridge!


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What is your full name, title, and company name for your current, primary role?

Alexander Stone, DPT, CSCS — Patient Engagement Content Manager for MedBridge

What additional roles do you currently have?

Healthcare education content production services (via my LLC).

Where are you located?

Seattle, WA

Where did you go to PT school, and what year did you graduate?

University of Washington (Class of 2019)

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What did you do when you first finished school, and for how long?

I went straight into patient care and continued to work with patients from 2019 through 2022.

In what setting(s) did you work, and what types of patients did you treat?

I worked in my area of passion: outpatient orthopedics. Working at a few different clinics, I primarily treated patients with musculoskeletal injuries and those recovering from surgery. As a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS), I also worked with a lot of athletes and fitness enthusiasts.

What did you enjoy about your early roles? What didn’t you enjoy?

My favorite part about my early roles was helping someone, in some way, every day. As someone who loves educating others, seeing patients have their “aha!” moments never failed to put a smile on my face.

The biggest challenges for me were the number of patients that I had to see, the constant struggle of documentation, and the need to always be “on” for 8-10 hours per day.

What else have you done since then, prior to your current role?

In 2020, I became a social media influencer and started an online health coaching business. As a major part of my transition, creating digital content and managing private clients really helped me gain confidence in my non-clinical skills before making a transition.

When and why did you decide to do something non-clinical?

During Spring of 2022, I found myself Googling “physical therapy career transitions” in the break room at work, and I knew that something wasn’t feeling right.

After a few weeks of research, I learned that not only was there a massive community of people who felt the same as me, but that some of my friends had been making their transition and were totally thriving.

What are you doing these days?

Right now, my primary role is creating patient-facing educational content for MedBridge as part of their Patient Engagement and Digital Patient Care teams. When I’m not doing that, I’m working on contracts through my LLC with private clients and constantly expanding on my ability to create content and evolve the field of digital PT.

Are you still treating patients, or are you solely non-clinical?

I am solely non-clinical at this time. While I’m interested in treating patients part-time in the future, I’m very content to continue my hiatus and keep my license active until the time feels right.

How long have you been in your current role?

One year.

What do you wish you would’ve known before going into this role?

I wish that I would have known that what many of my friends were telling me was actually true: soft skills are (almost) everything in the non-clinical world.

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Had I felt more confident in what I bring to the table during the process of finding and interviewing for my role, I could have avoided a lot of stress and second-guessing myself.

Did you get any special certifications or training along the way to help you get into your current role?

No, I didn’t take any specific courses. However, I do think that working on my LLC for a few years leading up to my transition gave me a lot of unique and valuable experience.

How did you find your job? Did you apply or find it through a connection?

My friend and colleague, Melissa, sent me the job posting through LinkedIn. I had already applied for ~5 positions through MedBridge, but figured one more couldn’t hurt.

Did you do anything special to your resume and cover letter to land the job?

Yes, three things:

  1. Tailored my resume to the exact job posting and removed irrelevant or esoteric clinical experience highlights.
  2. Highlighted my relevant entrepreneurial experience proudly, which I quickly learned was just as valuable as official employment experience.
  3. Focused on results with as many numbers as possible.

What was the interview like for the role?

My interview process included one call with the recruiter, one interview with another member of my team, two interviews with supervisors, one interview with a member of a collaborative team, a two-hour project, and a panel interview where I presented my project.

The process took about one month, with a total of six interviews and one project—wow! Aside from the pressure of interviewing, it wasn’t that stressful because everyone I interviewed with was exceptionally kind and easy to talk to. In hindsight, I appreciate the thoroughness of the interview process because I really enjoy working with all of my colleagues.

Can you tell us more about your business?

I started Stone Health, LLC in 2020 (while very stressed about COVID-19 clinic closures). It is a strictly digital business that offers content production, editing, and reviewing services for websites, apps, and clinics. My most popular services include website copywriting, article writing and review, and clinical consulting.

The idea for this business grew from my original business, which was leveraging social media to educate people on home PT, and manage private clients. As my online presence evolved, I started getting requests from new clients who wanted to feature me on their websites with articles, help develop apps, and review medical content.

How have people reacted to you leaving patient care?

“Wait, what? Didn’t you go to school for 8 years to be a physical therapist?”

My friends and family don’t understand, and that’s okay. When I tell them that I’m happier, more financially stable, and more excited for the future, they accept it.

What’s a typical day or week in the life like for you? What types of tasks and responsibilities fill your time?

A typical day for me as a content manager is a combination of managing communication with colleagues and external consultants or clients, planning and problem solving during video calls, and—my favorite part—creating new content for our users and their patients. We heavily leverage Google products, Slack, Monday, and a selection of other productivity tools that help organize and streamline our workflow in a way that works great for our remote teams.

One of the most unique parts about my job is the studio work: once every month or two, I go into the studio with our videography team to film new assets for our upcoming content. Managing models and a film crew isn’t something that I thought I would ever be doing, but it’s great!

What are some of the rewards of your role? What are the biggest challenges?

The biggest reward of my role is being the clinician in a room of non-clinical professionals. Just like when I was working with patients, helping my colleagues have their “aha!” moments in a way that ultimately betters the experience of the patients we build our products for is awesome.

The biggest challenge in my role is managing A LOT of different priorities at once. Every project that I work on has scores of different elements, and managing multiple projects at once can become overwhelming pretty quickly without good organization and time management. It’s all worth it though!

How did your clinical background prepare you for this role? Which skills transferred?

I think my clinical background was a great fit for my current role because the projects that I work on are designed for rehabilitation medicine patients. Although my job has been done by non-clinical professionals before, my expertise adds an additional filter for quality that (I think) helps keep the “health” in “health tech”.

Going from patient care into a project management role was a fairly smooth transition. The main skills that I’m thankful for from my clinical background are listening intentionally (making people feel heard), speaking thoughtfully (not just to speak), and focusing on big wins (not letting perfect get in the way of good).

Roughly speaking, how are the hours and pay compared to patient care?

When I was in patient care, I worked ten-hour days regularly (not counting commuting) with virtually no schedule flexibility. Now (at my primary job) I work a normal Monday-Friday schedule that focuses on getting work done, not just hours worked.

In patient care, I was maxing out the base salary for a staff physical therapist after three years of practice, and I felt stuck. When I transitioned, my pay stayed the same and now I have excellent opportunity for salary growth.

What type of person do you think would do well in your role?

Based on my experience, the ideal person for my role would be detail-oriented, invested in the quality of their work, open-minded with feedback or criticism, good at interdisciplinary communication, and fun to work with!

Do you work remotely or onsite?

Remotely, with the exception of ~1 day per month in the studio.

Does your organization hire PT, OT, or SLP professionals into non-clinical roles? If so, what type of roles?

Yes, MedBridge does a good job of hiring PT and OT professionals, and I think more SLP professionals will be important as we continue to grow!

My colleague (who is also a patient engagement content manager) is an OT, and we have other clinicians working on our professional development, product, client success, strategic solutions, and even software engineering teams. Hopefully this is a good reminder that your skills are valuable outside of the clinic!

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Did you read any books to get you where you are today?

Three years ago, I read the book The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris. This book taught me that life is more fun when you do it on your own terms, and you shouldn’t let the fear of failure stop you from trying something different with your professional life.

What is a typical career path for someone in your role?

Since my role is fairly unique, the established next step at MedBridge is to become a Senior Content Manager. However, the multifaceted experience in this type of role is great for transitioning into product roles, similar project management roles, and content department head roles.

What is next for you? What are your high-level career aspirations?

At this stage in my career, I’m taking a minute to enjoy where I’m at. A few years from now, I would like to be heavily involved in the production of content that gets delivered to patients in digital musculoskeletal care programs (which are growing in popularity exponentially right now) as a respected voice in the digital physical therapy world.

In my business, I’m looking forward to managing a team of clinicians who have a passion for digital health education to continue producing high-quality physical therapy content for readers and patients across the internet.

What would you recommend to someone who is considering going into a role like yours? Do you have any special words of wisdom for the readers?

Most of the non-clinical healthcare professionals you look up to are just like you, the only difference is that they already got lucky in the way that you’re hoping to.

Be confident and consistent, and the rest will follow!

What career advice would you give yourself that you wish you had during school?

When I was in school, I wish that someone would have told me to think more about the day-to-day implications of my professional life. I was so caught up in thinking about the big picture of my education and impact that I didn’t really think hard about what 40% of my waking life would be filled with, and the extra challenges that I would face with a low debt-income ratio.

What would you teach to today’s graduate students in your profession, if you had the opportunity?

Non-clinical skills are important! When you get out of school, it’s hard to find your place in the world without being taken advantage of by health systems, insurance companies, and employers.

The more savvy you are with professional etiquette and finances (neither of which are taught in school), the more opportunity you have to thrive and enjoy your time as a clinician!

Do you have any special advice for others who want to follow in your footsteps?

Even if your instincts are telling you it’s time to make a change, everything else—your fear of failure, your financial struggles, your parents, etc.—will make you question if you’re doing the right thing. If you know that you’re ready to try something new with your career, be bold and know that thousands of other people have already done it successfully.

Keep in mind that transitioning from the clinic into a non-clinical position is a numbers game. If your friends say they were rejected 150 times before getting one yes, then you should be happy to see your rejection numbers going up. If you’re getting rejected consistently now, then you’re putting in the work to ultimately get accepted by the people who will recognize your value later.

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