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Casey Callanan: True Sports Physical Therapy Podcast. I am the producer here, you won't be seeing me too much after today's episode, but we thought it was important to get the mics turned on and tell the audience a little bit about what they can expect to hear on the True Sports Physical Therapy Podcast, with your host, Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt. I'm Casey Callanan, like I said, just the podcast producer, hopping on for today's episode just to get things rolling. Alright, tell us about who you are, what True Sports PT looks like, the origin story, all of that type of thing.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Sure. So, I think this is a great idea, this obviously came out of your brain to have you on as an interviewer to kind of pull my story out of me. Very transparently, not my strongest point, talking about myself. I know we gotta get through it, 'cause I gotta introduce myself to this audience and give us a little bit of a lens through which we're gonna be looking, as we put together this podcast for the sports physical therapist. So, to backtrack a little bit, again, I'm Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt, I'm a doctor of physical therapy. I've been in practice since, I think '08, 2008. I grew up in Baltimore, I'm a fourth generation Baltimorean, so I got deep roots here. I went to the University of Maryland, College Park, undergrad, studied kinesiology, which in retrospect, I actually should have had a little bit different of a major to form my career as a Physical Therapist, but we can talk about that in a little bit. And some of that... Also that information coming forward is gonna be, how do we set yourself up... How do you set yourself up to be an outstanding sports PT?
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: So, once I finished my undergraduate studies, by the skin of my teeth, I got accepted into University of Maryland, Baltimore, I got my doctorate downtown in... Through the University of Maryland system, came out with a doctorate of physical therapy, a couple of times in that education, I thought about maybe taking a different route, taking a little bit of a different detour. And when I got out, again, transparently, I took the highest paying gig that was offered to me. And again, I would have done it a little bit differently. I ended up in a general orthopedic setting and I just wanted to treat athletes and it wasn't there. And they told me it would be there and it wasn't there. I would have one or two athletes a day, and I bet you, there are sports PTs out there right now that are working in a general orthopedic situation or clinic, and they get a couple of athletes and they're like, "Man, I would love to see more of this." And it's really... It was hard to find, at that time.
Casey Callanan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: So 2010, I started working for someone else, kinda flipped clinics, took another job. Again, they said it would be sports, I helped grow that athletic population, things didn't work out from a partnership standpoint like I had hoped, and I said, "Screw it, I'm sick of learning what not to do. I wanna do this on my own." In 2014, I took that leap, opened up True Sports Physical Therapy in Fells Point, Baltimore City. Ironically, it's in this beautiful 200-year-old church that had been re-purposed into a sports training facility and we started offering the Sports Physical Therapy side of that, strengthening, conditioning and training, and that was 2014. And then, that's all I wanted to do, that was the mission. It was just treat high-level athletes with high-level care in a one-on-one environment and it caught on like wildfire. And within three months, I turned from clinician into the manager/boss. I made my first hire, who's an outstanding clinician in his own right, who you'll hear from eventually on this podcast.
Casey Callanan: Okay.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: And so, I just kept replicating that 2014 model, where I treat, I fill my schedule, I hire again and the process starts over. And so, you're gonna hear a lot about this story, but fast forward to... Where are we now? 2022, and we're at 12 clinics, soon to be 13, throughout the State of Maryland. We just went into Pennsylvania, and we're trying to continue to create the ideal place for a physical therapist, sports physical therapist to work. Also the ideal place for an athlete to rehab and get better. And that's True Sports Physical Therapy in a nutshell, and that's what I wanna bring into this podcast is saying, "How do we do this right? How do you do it right, as a clinician? How does the new physical therapist coming out of school get into the field? How do they give the best to their athlete and their patient right in front of them? And how do we spread that?" And there's so many different angles about... And I love it, I love the business side... How do you do it responsibly, how do you grow, efficiently? And so that's what I'm looking forward to share.
Casey Callanan: So, when we talked about launching this podcast, it was really important for you to have a show that was for PTs. It wasn't necessarily for patients or for athletes. Why was it so important that this show actually be for the sports PT professional?
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Yeah, absolutely, and it was important for me to do that because when I founded the practice, it was about the athlete. And then as soon as I started seeing this team we were building around us, to provide care to that athlete, I knew there had to be a separate wing, it's not just about athletes reaching their goals, it is how do we create a structure to allow the sports PT to reach their goals? And that's this podcast. How do we help you, the audience, the sports PT, reach your goals of being the absolute best at what you do?
Casey Callanan: Yeah, and let's be honest, it's 2022. I've been in the podcast game since 2017.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: That's why you're here, Casey.
Casey Callanan: And back then, I felt like I was late to it, right? But the truth is, in my honest opinion, the more I do this, everyone's gonna have a different story to bring to the table. There's obviously other sports PT podcasts out there, we're not the first ones in the game. So with that in mind, what do you bring to the table that's different than the status quo?
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Yeah. This is the way I see sports physical therapy. That's why it's called True Sports. That which is out there is awesome. I think it's a very clean-cut, cropped version of what sports PT is. What you're gonna get here, and the reason I wanna start this podcast, is a little bit more unadulterated. It's great to have textbook knowledge, we're gonna talk about textbook knowledge. How do you rehab an ACL? But how do you rehab an ACL in this environment? When the rubber hits the road, what's it really like to rehab an ACL when it's not so smooth? What's it really like to try to spend time with those patients? What is it truly like? That's why it's called True Sports. And that's what you're gonna get here. And that's why I thought, important to create this thing. Yeah, there are others out there and there'll be more to follow. Yes, we're gonna be new at this and there'll be some bumps along the road, but we're gonna provide you our very best as to how to be an elite sports PT.
Casey Callanan: For someone that's gonna be utilizing this show as professional development, why regularly tune in every week? We're gonna go once a week. So how is this show gonna make someone be better at their job?
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Two-fold. One, it's gonna talk about the profession. It's gonna talk about the way you interact as a professional, the way you gain, buy in, some of those soft skills. You don't get that in school. And that was a big learning curve for me, coming out of school. It was one of my frustrations when I was in school. Tell me what it's gonna be like when things don't go smoothly, tell me what it's gonna be like when I get an athlete, a patient, that doesn't do what I tell them. Tell me what it's gonna be like to have a boss and to have a structure and how do I navigate those things? How do I grow? That's the soft side. I love that stuff. You're definitely gonna get that. Flip side, it's gonna make you better because we're also gonna be talking about that clinical expertise and acumen. You're gonna hear from awesome sports PTs from different backgrounds. You're gonna hear from sports scientists, you're gonna hear from orthopedic surgeons, you're gonna hear a whole host of, range of... Across a spectrum of sports PT, that you don't get in school and is not really being offered, as I see it in the marketplace. Don't get me wrong, I have awesome colleagues and awesome podcasters out there. This is just a little bit of a fresh angle.
Casey Callanan: Yeah, so talk about mentorships. I know that that was something that was important to you to bring to this show. Who are mentors in your career as a sports PT professional and what would you say about someone that's young in this field, maybe that's established in this field, and they haven't really taken on a mentor yet?
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: I think this environment is so different than when I was coming out of school and growing up in the profession, in the sense that it's so readily available. It's so easy to find a mentor now. I think, because of social media. I think some of the struggle is, how do you know what's a good mentor, how do you know how to apply certain things? That's what you're gonna get hopefully in this podcast. And how do you really vet? We learned in... When I was in graduate school, we learned about vetting publications and clinical trials and then scientific and clinical side of things. How do you vet the mentorship side of things? And you're gonna hear from a host of mentors on this podcast. It's what I wanna bring forward. I found it really refreshing when I found clinicians that were both older and younger than me that I was able to vet and use as mentors. And some of them are part of the True Sports team now and True Sports family. And that's been eye-opening and refreshing, and that's what we wanna bring forward.
Casey Callanan: Yeah. So, I wanna get back to a little bit more of the True Sports origin story because... I mean, is this podcast going to be for someone that has those ambitions or... Are we talking business side or are we talking actually making people more high-performance athletes? What is this about?
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: I think my answer to that is yes. We're talking about both those things. I actually think it's naive when you parse those.
Casey Callanan: Okay.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: I think it's... They run in tandem. And I think when you work for an organization or inside of an infrastructure that has figured out the business side, that can keep the lights on and allows you to lend your clinical expertise to your athlete, now you've struck gold, right? So my answer is, yeah, you're gonna hear both. I wanna bring forward both. How do you do a business, how do you structure a business, how can a burgeoning business owner do this properly?
Casey Callanan: Yeah.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: How can a burgeoning clinician work within a fabulous system to do it well?
Casey Callanan: I want to throw you some curve balls here and do maybe like a lightning round. As an outsider to sports PT, as just a podcast producer, I wanna know about things that I'm familiar with when I think about sports PT as a consumer. Again, I'm an outsider, but the first thing I think of in this age of Google and internet is like, "Okay, if I need a sports PT, I'm just gonna Google them." That's how I do a lot of things, right? So I would say...
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Yeah. That's how everyone does.
Casey Callanan: How do you deal with when someone is salty and gives you a bad review online or something like that? How do you deal with that frustrating element?
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Yeah. It's so different early on versus once you get towards growth stage. So early on, I remember looking at those Google reviews like nightly. Right? Like, who gave me what, how many stars, etcetera. It's crazy that, how important that is, but it is super important. I would call those patients, "Hey, why did you give us a two out of five? What was wrong? How can I make it better?" Period. I think that's good business to really be locked in. Then once you get to 30 physical therapists... Once you get to 10 physical therapists that are working with you or under you, then how do you monitor the athlete's reaction to what they're providing? And so that's an array of systems that you put in, checks and balances. How are you doing your electronical medical records to say, "Bang, here's an alert. This patient gave you this review." Good and bad. Another thing that I do is, I wanna talk to the people that give us five stars. I wanna know what we're doing well. How do we double down on that as well as correct that which doesn't resonate or wasn't helpful?
Casey Callanan: I agree with that because it's so easy... I mean, negative things just stand out more. So, it's so easy to just say, "Oh, yeah, another five star review, move along, move along," and look for that one star, two star 'cause those always stick out. So I actually appreciate you saying that.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Yeah. I think, don't let those one stars keep you up at night, but dive into them. They're helpful.
Casey Callanan: Yeah.
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