Dr. Farrel Grossman’s credentials include 21 years of practice experience, 19 years of practice management experience, and 19 years of regulatory experience at the state, national and international levels. Dr. Grossman is also an award-winning speaker consistently called to speak on healthy living to the public. Dr. Grossman has served as a witness in multiple depositions and has testified in court in all aspects of defense in the Chiropractic industry. He believes, “Above all else, the patient needs to be safe. What is good for the patient is always good for the doctor.”
In this episode of TechTalk Podcast, Brad Cost, Dr. Jay Greenstein, and Dr. Farrel Grossman sit down to discuss:
The significance behind Dr. Farrel's statement "chiropractic is good stuff."
Introducing, educating & building trust with healthcare professionals & chiropractic.
How Dr. Grossman is sharpening his sword for the new challenges headed his way.
SHOW NOTES:
3:36 - Getting into chiropractic. “Well, I got into chiropractic a long time before I got into chiropractic. My father was a chiropractic patient, and I was a kid who had terrible allergies and asthma. My father took me to the chiropractor and my asthma went away. I mean, it was unbelievable. Later on, I became involved in a very awful automobile accident. My car was totaled, and I lost all the feeling in my hands and my feet, but a chiropractor, after a few adjustments, returned normal function to my body. It was incredible. Then, I graduated from the University of South Carolina, Darla Moore School of Business with an undergraduate degree in finance and I went to work in the auto parts business. I busted my butt running up to my office one morning and our shop foreman picked me up and took me to the chiropractor. The chiropractor, after a few visits, got rid of my back pain and he said to me, ‘you know, you got to get out of this high stress job you're in because you'd make a great chiropractor.’ Well, I couldn't sleep for the next three days after he told me that. On my day in the field to go visit our parts houses, I stopped by every chiropractor's office that I passed and asked them one question: do you love what you do? Everyone responded with, ‘I love what I do.’ I wanted a profession that I can love what I do. Not just count the numbers and show my boss how much money we made. With an undergraduate degree in finance, I did not have my science requirements, so I continued to work full time, went back to school to get all of my science requirements, got accepted to Sherman College, and in 1985, I became a chiropractor.”
6:25 - Chiropractic is good stuff. “I was fortunate enough to meet a wonderful mentor who taught me how to do it right with a systems-oriented practice. We then went on to open up 11 chiropractic offices. Unfortunately, he passed away and I decided that no longer would I ever open up the multiple offices because it was just too much travel. I built a central facility and wanted a multidisciplinary scenario. I've got a little brother who's an internist, an older brother who's a dentist, a sister who's a college professor, and everybody had a little different angle, so I put together an organization where we had medical doctors, chiropractors, physical therapists, nutritional doctors, exercise physiologists. I did that until I retired the first time in 2008, and I went into chiropractic politics. I still maintain my management business because I also worked for other folks, helping them in my capacity, but I ran my chiropractic political career. I served on the State Board of Chiropractic Examiners. I was the president of our state association prior to that. I got elected to national office and became president of the Federation of Chiropractic Licensing Boards. I served on the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners. It's been a beautiful ride. Now I'm back in practice again because I cannot leave what I love. This is the best thing I've ever done. I love my management business, and I still do expert testimony, but there's nothing like treating the patients and having them tell you how great they feel. My response to them is this chiropractic is good stuff.”
14:07 – Referrals from all kinds of professionals. “I started my practice in Charleston, South Carolina on a street that only had one business at the time. Now, it has a 100,000+ cars a day passing by, so chiropractic has changed in a manner just as that road changed from a few cars to a 100,000+. The demand for what we did was peripheral in the day. There was a totally different attitude toward chiropractic, and we were definitely the last stop on the train in 1986. Those patients who came to us, they came as a result of a direct effect of someone referring them. One day my little brother sent me a patient. He's an internist, an MD, and a patient had a rib out of place. He had done everything for this patient, and he sent the patient to me. In a couple of adjustments, the rib pain was gone, and he was amazed. He took a pretty good ration of you know what from his colleagues, but he began to refer patients to me. Then, his practice partners began to refer patients to me and then come see me themselves. All of a sudden, these guys got to see how great chiropractic was because they didn't want surgery, had already tried the drugs and couldn't do the meds while they were working so they had to work in pain. It really changed the scene. I get referrals from all kinds of professionals now. A lot of the stigma is gone. People are sick and tired of being sick and tired. They don't want to use the drugs. My brother, in his effort to do the best for his patients and mine, tries to keep them as drug-free as he possibly can. If they need medications, he provides it. But when it comes to musculoskeletal, they come to me. It's a beautiful world, so the attitude has significantly changed.”
19:05 – 23 hours & 45 minutes of the day is up to you. “I have a methodology that works when it comes to musculoskeletal. That's the reason they're here because they know of me. The burden of responsibility has really fallen upon the shoulders of the individual. Just like I tell my patients, you are responsible for your healthcare. You hire me for 15 minutes, but the other 23 hours and 45 minutes of the day you have to manage your health care. When you come in to see me you get a 100% of my skill and expertise for those 15 minutes and I hope you follow my direction, but the rest is up to you. I have them thinking about their health all day: about their exercise routine, what they eat, how they take care of their head. It focuses their energies on their health, and they become better and healthier individuals. Healthcare has changed incredibly. It's phenomenal. In some ways it's good, some ways it's not so good. People understand chiropractic today. Many of the fears have been allayed and the popularity of chiropractic has gone astronomical, especially in my area. Charleston has always been very high on the healthcare podium. It's just phenomenal what's going on with chiropractic in our area. I love it. I hope it explodes a thousand times greater than what I've even seen in my lifetime.”
24:25 – Know more to educate more. “I agree with you 100%. It's very important that our population understands the research. Some of what we see is so understandable. Some of it's quite complicated, but most of it is so understandable. I had an engineer in the office the other day, and he was telling me he plays underwater hockey, which I'd never even heard of it. He was having some paresthesia and wanted to know scientifically why chiropractic improved his C6 paresthesia. I said, it’s really easy - when you get underwater and you stay in that hyperextended cervical position, it puts this type of pressure on you. He said, where'd you get that? I reached in my briefcase, and I took out the study. He said, how do you do this? I said, I read some type of research or educational process every day. I don't just read the chiropractic stuff. I read AMA rounds, so I can see what those guys are talking about and know what I need to focus on, so my patients get the chiropractic view of exactly what the medical profession is seeing. It's phenomenal. Education is a huge, huge focus for us and the more we know, the more we can educate our patients.”
31:32 - Building a leader in chiropractic. “You know, I was taught by the greatest. My grandfather was an amazing individual and incredible leader. You know, back in the days there was an investment firm called EF Hutton, and their motto was, “when EF Hutton speaks, everyone listens.” That's the way my grandfather was. He would allow me to stand by when people came to him for counseling. He was a business owner. He wasn’t a lawyer or psychologist, although he participated in those endeavors on a casual basis, and I got to see his leadership skills. My father and mother were also community leaders, so it kind of came naturally for me. When I got to chiropractic, I knew, because of the stigma of chiropractic, that I had to toe the line. One thing I always do is read the directions before I try to assemble the product, so I read the directions about chiropractic. I knew what was positive and what wasn't positive. I knew our parameters, our scope of practice, so I found my groove inside chiropractic.”
34:12 – Out with the old, in with the new. “When we started opening practices, I wanted everybody to do the core essentials that I felt were necessary. Adjust the spine. Being a board-certified sports physician, I also do a lot of other work. I take care of these up-and-coming athletes and give them leadership skills. I tell them it's important to know the rules of the game, to play at 100%, but within the parameters of the game. Everyone I work with knows that I am a by-the-rule kind of guy. If I see something that I don't agree with, I'm going to address it. When we set up the providers of approved continuing education, I never dreamed I could make so many enemies so quick. Now we have quality educators like you, Jay, who teach us what we need to teach. The professors who were the “sign in, go play golf, come back and get credit” are gone. They don't mention my name without some curse word, but they needed to go. We needed leadership through our educational process, because the more we know, the better we are.”
36:17 – Sharpening our sword. “The leadership that I brought to the Federation to institute the educational process at PACE was my central focus. We worked very, very hard on that. During my tenure, we had 30 states sign on and change their state laws. There were already 12 on the book. Now, when you teach, your credit hours are good everywhere in the United States, which they should be because you're a quality teacher. You are a PACE-approved provider. You work under the umbrella of an organization like South Carolina Chiropractic Association that only brings quality educators. That's why at this meeting, we had the best lineup of educators that we ever had at the South Carolina Chiropractic Association. I bring my leadership to the profession to try to help us fill the need that I see that we can fill. There are a lot of needs that I've not figured out how we can fill yet. I'm ready for a new challenge and I'm going to sharpen my sword.”
37:49 – The voice for those who had no voice. “My grandfather came from Russia. He came from Lithuania, and he escaped the Bolsheviks. They were coming in and killing his family. In fact, he was the last one to get out. The rest of his family were destroyed by the Bolsheviks. When he came to this country and made his way south, he became the voice for those who had no voice. He spoke for the poor people that had no way to communicate their needs and their wants. He became an advocate for them. He served on our state welfare board for years and years and years. At the end of his tenure, he said, nobody should work this long in one job in the public eye - serve your time, move on and bring somebody else so that they can continue the job. My grandfather was always there to be the voice of those who had no voice and that's what I've done for chiropractic. I found out early in my career that whatever was good for the patient was always good for the doctor. That's the philosophy I've lived my life.”
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