This week’s spotlight is on Michael Lyons, OTR/L, a non-clinical occupational therapist who is now a Therapy Development Specialist for Mobia Medical!
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What is your full name, title, and company name for your current, primary role?
Michael Lyons, OTR/L — Therapy Development Specialist for Mobia Medical
Editor’s note: Since this interview was conducted, MicroTransponder, Inc. has rebranded to Mobia Medical, Inc. The current company name is used throughout this spotlight.
Where are you located?
Los Angeles, CA.
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Where did you go to OT school, and what year did you graduate?
University of Southern California B.S. 2017, M.A. 2018. I did the five-year bachelor-to-master’s program.
What did you do when you first finished school, and for how long?
When I first graduated, I jumped into the world of home health. Which was absolutely overwhelming as a new grad.
After a year in traditional home health, I got a position with Rehab Without Walls, which I loved for years. This is where I developed my strong interest and skill set in neuro, especially for stroke and TBI.
I was with them when the pandemic hit. Doing home and community rehab when the entire community is closed (as well as all my public bathrooms) absolutely had its challenges.
In what setting(s) did you work, and what types of patients did you treat?
In 2020 (after the pandemic started), I started working in ARU and acute care positions at various hospitals. I kept a variety of PRN jobs as opposed to one full time, as flexibility and variety is important to me. I also worked in inpatient psych as PRN, which was fun and different.
My last clinical position was at a tiny therapeutic school for kids with autism, many with Level 3 autism. It was here I realized I was truly ready to do something very different than being a treating clinician. Though I absolutely loved the kids! That job is the only job I have ever cried leaving, and I think about them every day.
What did you enjoy about your early roles? What didn’t you enjoy?
I enjoyed knowing I was truly making a difference in people’s lives every day, and making people feel cared for. A stark difference from many of my friends who had corporate jobs right out of college and felt like they were doing something soulless.
That being said, the energy output as a clinician is obviously immense. I know that I made strong positive impacts on my patients every day, making sure they felt seen, heard, and truly cared for. But I would be completely wiped at the end of the day. Like, lay on the floor, stare at the ceiling for an hour, and can’t speak to anyone, wiped.
It also started to scare me about how reliant the job was on being in very good physical shape, and how even a minor injury like a broken toe or finger could impede my ability to do my job. I didn’t even want to go snowboarding anymore because it dawned on me the financial risk I was putting myself in by doing so.
When and why did you decide to do something non-clinical?
It was about five years into clinical care that I started contemplating it, but about seven years in when I actually made the move.
In addition to the above, I was craving getting to work on longer-term projects where I could have a system-wide impact. In all the different settings I worked in, I would become extremely frustrated by bureaucracy and systemic hindrances that I did not have the time, energy, or influence to change because I was so busy with a full caseload day in, day out.
I became fatigued from using my brain the same way; evaluate clients, come up with goals, treat to meet goals, repeat. Even though I explored so many different settings, it kind of all felt the same. I wanted to tackle more complex problems with wider influence.
What are you doing these days?
Now my only position is Therapy Development Specialist with Mobia Medical.
Are you still treating patients, or are you solely non-clinical?
I am solely non-clinical.
How long have you been in your current Therapy Development Specialist role?
I started this position in May 2025, so at the time of writing, it’s been about eight months.
What do you wish you would’ve known before going into this role?
For those of us who have only worked clinically, the decorum, etiquette, communication styles, and politics of the corporate world can be jarring. Not that it’s all bad, but I absolutely had whiplash adjusting to this new culture the first few months.
Did you get any special certifications or training along the way to help you get into your current role?
Yes! In August 2024, I started the Google Career Certificate for Project Management, which I completed in December 2024. It absolutely helped me start to learn about non-clinical, corporate workflows and definitely helped make me a stronger candidate for my current position. I highly recommend it!
How did you find your job? Did you apply or find it through a connection?
They found me! I actually wasn’t applying yet. I was studying for the CAPM test to bolster my qualifications as a Project Manager. And I wasn’t planning on applying for a job until after I took that test.
And then I got a LinkedIn message out of the blue from a recruiter about this job. Turns out LinkedIn can be useful after all!
Did you do anything special to your resume and cover letter to land the job?
With a combination of ChatGPT and my wonderful friends in corporate jobs, I redesigned my resume to pull out all the transferable skills from clinical jobs, as well as other parts of my life.
I’m also an actor/writer/theater producer here in LA, and many of those skills apply here. I was not shy about talking about this part of my life in my resume or in the interview process.
What was the interview like for the Therapy Development Specialist role?
Oof. This is where it’s very different. Like many clinical folks, most of my clinical jobs had one (1) interview. And half the time, that interview wasn’t even an interview. It was a tour of the facility with discussion about start dates. A pulse check and a license verification.
I had a total of nine interviews with different people in the company for this position over the course of a month. Most were Zoom or phone. I had one in-person interview, which was technically my third round, I think.
The recruiter highly suggested I make a “Therapy Awareness Plan” (basically a business plan) for how I would tackle the role in LA. Most of my interview was walking through that, painting out why I’m their guy, with some traditional interview-style questions throughout.
How have people reacted to you leaving patient care?
All my close friends were extremely supportive because they saw how burnt out I had been from years in clinical care. They were my biggest cheerleaders.
Clinicians I worked with had mixed reactions. No one was negative, exactly, but on my journey, some were just confused about what else we could possibly do that wasn’t clinical (and wasn’t hospital admin).
What’s a typical day or week in the life like for you? What types of tasks and responsibilities fill your time?
My overarching goals are: 1. Raise awareness of the Vivistim Paired-VNS system amongst clinicians and patients. 2. Promote its adoption. 3. Train clinicians in evaluation and treatment of Vivistim patients and be their go-to person for support and resources.
I conduct staff in-services at hospitals/clinics in my territories, meet with supervisors and interested clinicians regarding adoption, and teach CEU courses regarding best practice neuro-rehab and its use with Paired-VNS. There is also a good amount of case management type responsibilities, helping make sure an interested patient moves along the pathway, as well as solving the kinks along the way. That’s a fancy way of saying many emails and phone calls.
I tend to batch my admin type stuff on the one to two days per week I’ll have to be WFH, as it’s hard to do those tasks when I’m on the road and working in the field.
What are some of the rewards of your Therapy Development Specialist role? What are the biggest challenges?
Being trusted with a whole project of “Make Vivistim a success in LA” has been incredibly rewarding. I’ve been given the autonomy to put to use all the problem solving and system/program building desire that’s been brewing for years, but sat dormant in my more rigid clinical roles.
I’m building executive fluency, understanding parts of the picture I wasn’t privy to as a clinician, getting creative each day with how I engage with this exciting challenge.
Most rewarding of all though, is stepping into this corporate sales space with my clinical expertise and heart. Being a clinician with seven years of experience absolutely helps me connect better with clinicians than the average med sales rep without clinical experience.
Some challenges: I won’t sugarcoat this, I drive A LOT. From Ventura, to Palmdale, to Palm Springs, to Murrieta, and everywhere in between. SoCal driving is no walk in the park.
I decided to set pretty firm boundaries (which made me nervous at first) early on that I don’t jump on Zoom meetings or take intense phone calls while driving, for my safety, others’ safety, and my mental endurance over the day. There is unfortunately a culture of jumping on cognitively heavy Zoom meetings in this space that I think needs to change.
Another challenge has been adjusting the way people who have only worked in these spaces perceive problems, urgency, timelines, etc. It can be hard not to be bothered by manufactured urgency in particular. If you’ve worked in ARU/acute care in particular, you understand the difference between medical urgency and operational preference disguised as medical urgency. Setting these boundaries, communicating timelines to others, while also playing by the rules of this space is a balancing act.
How did your clinical background prepare you for this role? Which skills transferred?
So my company originally had non-clinical med sales reps in this position, and over time, recreated the position and filled it only with OTs and PTs. Which was a smart move.
Since my job involves a lot of interfacing with clinicians, and in particular, therapists, one of my key abilities is being able to connect with them as a fellow therapist, which helps them lower their guard. No one likes being sold to.
But the sooner I can connect with them as a fellow neuro therapist, and we start conversing as such, we can build a stronger, mutually beneficial professional relationship.
My ability to speak the language, pull from countless examples from my time in clinical care, make the right jokes, and foresee and name their problems/questions that they are hesitant to bring up or are having trouble articulating are all invaluable skills. I can’t imagine succeeding in this job without my clinical experience.
Roughly speaking, how are the hours and pay compared to patient care?
This is actually my first salaried full-time job. Some weeks could be 50-60 hours, but some are more like 30, so it really does balance out to about 40 hours per week.
I love pay transparency so here it is: Base salary is $100,000, with OTE (on target earnings) up to $50,000. So about $150,000, but could be a bit more or could be a bit less.
What type of person do you think would do well in your Therapy Development Specialist role?
Someone who is okay with vague asks and answers, is comfortable with every day and week looking different, and has thick skin for all the times you hear “no” or “not right now.” This is where my experience as an actor/writer is especially transferable!
Do you work remotely or onsite?
It’s a field-based job, so all my admin can be done from home (or coffee shop, etc.), but I am often on-site at different hospitals and clinics.
Does your organization hire PT, OT, or SLP professionals into non-clinical roles? If so, what type of roles?
For the Therapy Development Specialist role, you have to be an OT or PT. I know our Clinical Navigators are mostly RNs, but there are a few OTs in that role.
Did you read any books, take any courses, or do anything special overall to get you where you are today?
Definitely reading emails/blog posts from The Non-Clinical PT, Hey Health Tech, and the Google Career Certificate in Project Management (I also did a few shorter Google Career Certificates in AI).
What is a typical career path for someone in your Therapy Development Specialist role?
Since it’s a fairly unique position at a younger company, this is a bit hard to answer. People who’ve stayed with the company have transitioned to different roles created as the company has grown, sometimes still in Sales, sometimes more in Education or Implementation.
Those who have moved on from this company, but very much enjoy sales, might go be a rep or Territory Manager at another med tech company.
What is next for you? What are your high-level career aspirations?
I’ve learned a lot in this sales-adjacent med tech role, but what I’m most drawn to next is being closer to product and strategy.
I really enjoy acting as a translator between clinical and non-clinical teams — helping clinicians understand not just the technology, but the shift in how neuro-rehab can/should be delivered, and helping non-clinical teams stay grounded in what clinicians actually care about and struggle with day to day.
Long term, I want to help shape health technologies so they genuinely fit into real clinical workflows and real lives.
More health tech companies are recognizing that clinicians with substantial real-world experience need to be part of designing the products and workflows they expect clinicians to adopt.
