‘You can always pivot’: Physician advises you are never stuck as you navigate your career

After spending 17 years working as an allergist in Alaska, Melinda M. Rathkopf, MD, MBA, made a big career change in 2023.

She left her position as the director of a private practice in Anchorage and moved 4,000 miles southeast to Atlanta to work as a pediatric allergist/immunologist at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and associate professor of pediatrics in the division of allergy and immunology at Emory University School of Medicine

Although she was happy to call Alaska home for nearly 2 decades, she enjoys being back in her hometown where her career began.

‘Find a mentor’

Throughout Rathkopf’s career moves, she credits her patients, colleagues and mentors with the opportunities that arose and the choices she made.

Rathkopf stayed nearby her hometown during college, receiving her undergraduate degree from Georgia Institute of Technology and her medical degree from Emory University School of Medicine.

It was not until she began her pediatrics residency in the U.S. Air Force that she moved away from Atlanta.

“The cost of medical school was overwhelming, and when I looked into ways to pay for it, I learned about Air Force military scholarships,” Rathkopf said. “I was able to do all of medical school without a single loan, and I met some amazing people and had an amazing experience. I learned a lot, and I got the chance to serve my country.”

Rathkopf completed her residency in pediatrics at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, and spent several years working as a general pediatrician. Then she took on training for basic allergy care, which is how she became interested in the field.

“Many military bases are too small to have their own allergist,” Rathkopf said. “I did this extra training on how to oversee allergy shot patients and run a basic allergy clinic under the supervision of a regional allergist.”

Working with these patients inspired Rathkopf to apply for allergy and immunology fellowships, which she attended through the San Antonio Uniformed Services Health Education Consortium at Wilford Hall Medical Center.

Through her training in San Antonio, Rathkopf met another Air Force allergist who moved to Alaska to start a practice. Once she left the military, Rathkopf took a job at the practice and moved with her family to Anchorage.

A piece of advice Rathkopf took away from the early part of her career was to find a mentor who was doing what she wanted to do, like the pediatricians she worked with during residency and the allergists she was learning from during her fellowship. She even noted her high school band director had served as a mentor to her before she began pursuing medicine.

“Do not feel like you have to have one mentor who encompasses it all — you can have multiple mentors,” Rathkopf said. “A significant number of my mentors were men too; they do not have to be your same gender to be a great mentor.”

‘You are never stuck’

Rathkopf spent nearly 2 decades in Anchorage at an allergy private practice, which was considered large compared with most allergy clinics.

“It was a great place to practice medicine,” Rathkopf said. “It was a great place to raise our children, too. It was an amazing setting; Alaska is gorgeous.”

In 2019, Rathkopf took over as medical director of the practice, which she considers one of her proudest achievements. However, she was responsible for running the clinic when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. She said navigating the public health emergency was extremely challenging, but she prides herself for doing it successfully.

“We never shut our doors for a day, and I never had to let go of anyone,” she said. “It was a lot of teamwork to do that, and I had a lot of support.”

The consequences of that challenging period of her career eventually took their toll, as about a year and a half ago, Rathkopf said she began experiencing severe burnout and considered quitting medicine completely.

“I got to the point where I felt like I was stuck,” she said.

Then Rathkopf began thinking about how much she still enjoyed working with pediatric patients and teaching — something she was not able to do as often as she liked in her current practice. When she saw the opportunity at Children’s Healthcare in Atlanta, she felt like it was her chance to find joy in medicine again.

Still, it was not an easy decision. Rathkopf said it took a lot of courage to tell her partners at the allergy practice about her choice to leave, and it was nerve-wracking to ask her family to make such a big move.

“At the end of the day, you have to do what is best for you and your family and hope everyone understands,” Rathkopf said. “My best advice is to know that you are never stuck. You can always pivot.”

‘Surround yourself with good people’

Nearly 1 year later, Rathkopf is confident she made the right choice. Returning to Atlanta meant coming back to her family and friends, as well as a return to the things she loves most about being a physician.

Rathkopf joined Children’s in June 2023 and has assumed the position of medical director of the clinic which, she said, fits well with her recent completion of her MBA through Auburn University’s Physicians Executive MBA program. She is working on projects to improve access and flow within the clinic, and she gets to work with medical students, residents and fellows.

Being in a referral clinic, Rathkopf said she finds her work challenging and interesting.

“Challenging diagnoses I would see once or twice a year [in Alaska], I see now on a weekly or monthly basis,” she said.

Rathkopf loves being closer to her family as well. Her children are both attending college in the region, and her parents live in Alabama.

She and her husband also reconnected with friends from Georgia Tech, where they met in the marching band. Rathkopf was even invited to join a community band and got to pull out her trumpet for the first time in 25 years.

“It’s a nice release,” she said. “I’m just there to enjoy music and have a creative outlet.”

Rathkopf advises younger physicians to create a community inside and outside of the office. From her coworkers at Children’s to her family and friends in Atlanta, Rathkopf has built the community she needed to thrive, which is exactly what she is doing now.

“Surround yourself with good people; that goes a long way,” Rathkopf said. “Even from my military days, I learned I could be stationed anywhere as long as I was surrounded by good people.”

For more information:

Melinda M. Rathkopf, MD, MBA can be reached at mrathkopf@emory.edu.