Discover the secrets to maintaining the heart and soul of medical care with Dr. Nick Grasso and Kendra Rourke, as they join us to tackle the future of private medical practice. With Dr. Grasso's deep roots in orthopedics, honed through his long and outstanding military career, and Kendra's cutting-edge perspective on care transformation, we dissect the rising tide of hospital employment and its potential to wash away the personalized touch that private practices provide. Our conversation is an illuminating beacon for healthcare professionals and patients alike, offering a glimpse into a future where the art of medicine thrives alongside the forces of industry change.
Venture with us into the brave new world of preventive healthcare, where innovations once dreamt in science fiction are now at our fingertips. We're not just discussing the latest gadgets; we're examining breakthroughs that could redefine community health and individual wellness. Picture a healthcare landscape where motion analysis technology is as common as your smartphone, and AI isn't just a buzzword but a tool for crafting tailored preventive strategies. Our guests share how these advancements are reshaping their fields, potentially setting private practices as the vanguards of a healthcare revolution.
We wrap up with an invigorating look at the crossroads of medicine and sports, showcasing how cutting-edge technology is game-changing for athletes and patients alike. From reducing injuries with motion analysis to exploring the potential of robotic limbs, we're on the front lines of orthopedic innovation. And it's not all about the technology – we're also reflecting on our personal Baltimore tales, the bond between soccer and medicine, and the promise of future dialogues that blend these passions for the betterment of our communities. Join us for a journey that's as much about heart as it is about science.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
That was a ridiculous countdown.
But we're back with Not thePress podcast, and I have some
awesome guests today and I'mjust going to go around the
table here real quick.
We got Dr Nick Grasso fromBaltimore.
He's going to explain a littlebit about what he does, some of
the companies he's worked for,what he leads now as a president
for what I know of twodifferent organizations, and he
(00:24):
has a person that works for himhere.
Her name's Kendra Rourke andshe has a very interesting
background too as well, doingthe same type of health work.
But first, before we go to them, minx, let's just get that out
of the way.
You're going to have to sayhello real quick.
Do it Hello.
That was like a five.
(00:44):
All right, we're going to workon that.
So, dr Nick Grasso, let's go toyou first.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Great Thanks, Scott.
My name is Nick Grasso.
I'm an orthopedic surgeonprivate practice up in the
Baltimore area.
I spent 23 years in the Armyprior to going into private
practice, Got out a very longtime ago and I'm now the
president of two organizations.
One is Centers for AdvancedOrthopedics, which is the second
largest orthopedic group in thecountry, and Medvanta, which is
(01:14):
a next-generation healthtransformation company that will
hopefully help improve healthcare in this country.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, and I have a whole bunch of cool questions
about what you just said andsome of the stuff I was involved
with with Kendra In fact,that's how we all got here today
is because of Kendra.
But first, Kendra, who are you?
Speaker 3 (01:31):
So, kendra Rourke, I'm a nurse by trade.
I've been a nurse for about 20years.
I'm the VP of CareTransformation with MedVanta.
I've been with MedVanta forabout three years now, really
trying to put forward themission of transforming
healthcare.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
See, that's amazing.
That's what we want on thisshow people that have action,
Boom.
So one of the things you hadsaid.
Can I call you, Doc Nick?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Dr Nick is what everyone calls me.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yes, I love it.
So first one's going to be areally weird question, but I'm
dead serious.
Do you know any proctologists?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
that I can have on this show.
No, actually I don't Damn it.
No, and they don't go byproctologists anymore.
I think it is called by GIgastroenterologists.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Oh, okay, and you don't, I'm going to find one.
I'm going to find one.
I have.
I have very legit questions forthose people.
Okay, so damn it.
So, 23 years in the Army, whatwas your, as you can relate it
to what your executive positionsare now like?
(02:38):
What was the best takeaway from23 years in the Army to bring
to what you're doing now?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
That's a great question, because I wasn't
medical when I when I came in.
I came in straight out ofcollege.
I was a line guy for four yearsand then I went to medical
school with the military andthen did all my training at
Walter Reed and had variouspositions, um and my duty
assignments.
I was chief of a couple ofdifferent orthopedic departments
at hospitals and I think what Ilearned the most was I never
wanted to be part of a largeorganization like that again,
(03:08):
which is why I went into privatepractice and I think what's
pushed me and all of us who areinvolved with CAO and MedVanta
into doing what we're doing istrying to preserve that private
practice model right.
It's under a lot of stressnowadays in this country.
There are threats to theprivate practice of medicine and
we're trying to preserve thatand to give some alternatives to
(03:29):
folks who might be consideringgoing a different way.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Well, let's back up a little bit on that real quick,
if you don't mind.
When you say there's threats toprivate practice, what are some
of those threats and how did weget here?
How did we get to where we'reat today?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, great question.
Most people don't realizewhat's going on.
Ten years ago, 75% of thedoctors in this country were in
private practice 25% were eitheremployed by a hospital or
worked in academia or in themilitary.
Here we are, fast forward tenyears.
Those numbers have completelyflipped.
We are now 75 of the doctors inthis country are employed
(04:07):
either by a big payer, ahospital system, academia or the
military, and only 25 are inprivate practice.
And the reason why that'simportant is, you know, there's
a few things we know aboutprivate practice.
One is it provides care at amuch cheaper rate than hospitals
do.
Hospitals, and and and are muchmore expensive, and when you're
talking about trying to controlthe cost of care, we feel
(04:29):
private practice is the way todo that.
We provide care that's as good,if not better, than the
hospitals do, but we do it in amuch more efficient way.
So we think it's worthpreserving, preserving, and if
we lose private practice, we'regoing to be at the mercy of
hospital systems or PE backedgroups who really only care
(04:50):
about turning a profit, and I'mnever going to, I'm never gonna
let that happen while I'mworking.
I've got a few years left.
Your family goes to thatprivate practice.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
They know your family , you know them, they know like,
if you go through that, likewhen I was growing up I had his
name was Dr Varus.
He was our team doctor forbasketball football.
All the families went to hispractice.
He knew every single member ofthose families, he knew what to
treat, he knew when you know theperson and you know who you're
(05:33):
dealing with, you can treat it.
You treat things differently,right, absolutely, and I think
that's to me, money aside stuff,and I agree with you on all
that.
That's the awesomeness ofprivate practice.
And if that goes away, man, holycow, do we lose something Like
we're?
We're losing a big thing insociety.
Society change man, becausethat type of shit is important
(05:57):
across the board, absolutely.
I mean, when you look at um,now, again, I'm not a woman, I'm
not gonna, I'm not gonna claimI have experience in this.
However, I can only imaginethat, um, a woman and a woman
doctor, a gynecologist, um, justuh, as one aspect of this, okay
, so if you have a privatepractice and a woman becomes
(06:20):
comfortable with that doctorbecause of woman stuff, you're
seeing the same person all thetime.
They know you, you know them.
When that becomes out of privatepractice.
How does that change that typeof relationship?
I mean, because that's somevery important stuff that people
don't think about.
And I'll go back to theproctologist.
I want the same dude who'slooked down that cannon before.
(06:45):
I don't want anyone elselooking down it.
Um, so I'm just saying, like,like, this stuff's very, very
important, um, and and people,I'm glad you're bringing
attention to this and you guysare actually taking action um to
to keep private practice alivewithin the medical field.
I wish they'd do it in bigpharma too.
Fuck those guys, by the way, sosorry.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Okay, so I'm going to go back to Kendra.
So, kendra, we we've got somevery funny video from today.
Um, you have me trying to dostuff where I needed to be
flexible not a flexible guy tobe flexible, I'm a flexible guy
(07:29):
and I'll have that footage.
But it was for Medvanta andthey're going down to soft week
and they're going to have avideo there.
But so you were, you weresaying what that system that you
had.
You had a iPad up.
Explain a little bit about whatthat is and how that plays into
CAO and what you guys are doingbetween the two organizations,
or does it even marry up?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Sure.
So, yes, it does marry up, andso what a lot of MedVanta is
trying to do is go on upstreamto the prevention side of things
.
We're not trying to takepatients away from CAO or
physician groups, but we knowthat we can delay or even
mitigate certain problems, whichalso can reduce the cost of
healthcare, make it better forthe patients, because really and
(08:12):
, with my nursing background andI'm sure Dr Gross can attest to
this too it really comes downto that good patient care, and
when you get out of a privatepractice model, it becomes more
of like a machine and you'rejust getting them through,
getting them through and reallynot getting to know that person.
And so, with this digitalassessment, it's a risk of
injury assessment.
(08:32):
It can also look at balanceissues, stability, flexibility,
those types of things, and whiletech is very important and
extremely helpful in theorthopedic field, we also know
that you have to have a humanbeing behind that as well, yes,
and so what we're doing is usingthis technology to help our
humans be more accurate.
So they're going back through,watching the videos of the
(08:54):
assessments, looking at theresults and they're coming up
with an individualized plan forcorrective exercises that are
being monitored.
We can do it digital.
We can also send them to apractice such as the Centers for
Advanced Orthopedics to getthem into physical therapy,
those types of things tohopefully reduce the need for
surgery but know that, if andwhen they do need surgery, that
(09:17):
we have a good private practicelike.
Cao to send them.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
We were talking a little bit before about
preventive.
Well, I mean, we were talking alittle bit before about
preventive, and so I'm not goingto try and swing this back to
Big Pharma, because they hatepreventive, because that's not
how they make money, butpreventive.
I feel like private practicebrings preventive, and why
(09:46):
wouldn't people want to?
And a group of people teachingme how to prevent myself from
getting hurt, that tells me theyactually do care.
You know what I mean.
And I don't see a lot of otherorganizations that aren't
private practices or privategroups that actually put that
out there, because I don'tbelieve they care, I believe
(10:06):
they want people to get hurt.
Actually, I mean, I don't know,conspiracy theory, I don't know
, but that kind of seems like itto me.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, I read an article years ago.
Somebody smarter than me wrotethat we don't have healthcare in
this country.
We have illness care, right.
People don't go to the doctoruntil they're sick Reactive, not
proactive.
Reactive, not proactive.
And if you look at themusculoskeletal our, our little
piece of that, it's like injurycare.
We, we, we get the person afterthey've been injured.
You know, we get the collegeathlete with the ACL tear, we
(10:35):
get the weekend warrior with thewith the Achilles rupture, uh,
the old person who fell down andbroke their hip, you know.
And if you can prevent that, Imean, like we were talking
earlier years ago, 10 years ago,in order to do this kind of
motion analysis, I would havehad to take you to this big
motion lab with hundreds ofthousand dollars worth of
cameras and computers and we'dhave to put reflective markers
on you to go through this.
(10:57):
The technology has evolved tothe point that now we're able to
do with an iPad, right, with noreflective markers, and we're
hoping soon to be able to do itwith a smartphone.
And if we can intervene tothese people, just think about
what it means across allsegments of society, from the
elderly and fall risk athletes.
We know young female athleteshigh school, college level are
much more prone to ACL injuriesif you could prevent those.
(11:21):
And there've been elderlybalance classes for years.
There have been plyometricsroutines for high school
athletes and things like that,but that's kind of a blanket
solution targeting everybody butno one specifically.
This will allow us to targetpeople individually, their going
on.
You just gave me an idea.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Oh, it's amazing.
So not only can you do likeright now you're doing
individuals, but the way likewithin marketing and stuff.
You've got cameras that candetect somebody's mood because
of AI stuff.
So what if you were to docommunities like hey look, dude,
your village, 90% of youmotherfuckers have some bad
(12:16):
posture.
You know what I mean.
So we got to do somethingpreventive here, you know, we
got to help you out.
I think that's kind of thedirection that this is going
Like.
If you have the system and thesoftware and the mechanism to
chart that out with a cameratraining that model for a larger
(12:38):
population, I mean, granted,there would have to be some left
and right lateral limits ofwhere the camera's placed this,
that and the other buteventually I bet you you can get
there.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
That'd be pretty badass man.
Yeah, it's like I used to go tothe mall with my wife and I'd
watch people walking around.
I'd go, oh that guy needs atotal knee and oh, that guy
needs a hip and she would makefun of me.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
I'd go.
But cow, that's like a.
It's evil thinking about thisbecause it's a moneymaker.
But you know what?
It'll help people, It'll reallyhelp people, and you could do
analysis.
If this were ever to come tofruition, you could go to, like
you know those historic bluezones in the world and look at
how they are with posture andwhatever orthopedic stuff, and
(13:24):
then go to like you know, Idon't know what's that town we
used to live in by Millersville,Glen Burnie, and compare the
two and be like, okay, who's gotthe better posture here and why
?
Is it diet, Is it lifestyle?
Are they walking?
What are the people in GlenBurnie doing?
They're smoking on the frontporch.
You know what I mean.
Like there's, there's a.
I think there's a there there,though.
You know what I mean.
Like there's, I think there's athere there, though you know
(13:44):
what I mean.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
And I think, to add to that, we have access to so
much more data than we ever had.
So we can.
We have a whole tech teamthat's pulling data from
different sources, and what weintend to do is take that data,
put AI on top of it and thenlook at some of those predictive
patterns so you take that data,you overlay it with the digital
(14:07):
data, the screenings.
I mean that's some powerfulstuff.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
It is, it's really affect populations.
It is and I don't.
I'm not sure if you can answerthis.
So how?
How quickly, like when, when Iwas on that camera today, or the
iPad, how quickly is itdetermining what I am on
whatever chart?
Is it doing it immediately oris that a post-process thing?
Speaker 3 (14:31):
It's immediately so what it does, and we didn't do
it today just for the sake oftime.
But typically what we would dois put in your gender, your date
of birth, your height, yourweight and if you're
right-handed or left-handed, inwhich foot basically, you kick
with your dominant foot and itcompares you to people of your
same gender, your same weightyour same height, but it is
(14:53):
immediate.
So, as we were measuring you,it was giving us, for example,
range of motion score based onyour specific characters, from
the data that they've researched.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Look, I know you guys are trying to do the right
thing from a health standpoint,but I'm telling you, in the
marketing world, this would berevolutionary With what you're
coming on pushing it down theroad of love.
Because, think about it, nikeand I hate Nike, but I'm just
going to put them becauseeverybody knows who Nike is it,
uh, nike and I hate nike, butI'm just going to put them
(15:26):
because everybody knows who nikeis.
Um, so you got a bunch ofpeople that have bad posture and
then you know that through youranalytics and you, you give
that data to a shoe company.
Be like, look, you need tomarket this product to them
because they need it, and thisis the reason why I've given you
the information.
You bought the information, runwith it and then, whatever,
(15:48):
however, they market that, butthat's valuable information,
that's very, very valuableinformation that people will pay
for.
But whatever, I mean, it's amarketing thing, it's not a.
Actually it does help the world.
I mean, come on, someone's gotto bring it right.
Anyways, I'm going to reel backa little bit.
So, one of the things that I Ido have some questions about
(16:11):
Baltimore, but we'll get to that.
I want to.
I want to know more about the,the, the medical plan or what,
what you guys have buildingright now.
So you talked about your planfrom this assessment going from
iPad to iPhone.
What's the next leap after that?
Like, what's the five-yearoutlook on this?
Speaker 2 (16:31):
So what we would love to see is everyone have an app
on their phone, right, and theycan do the analysis on their
phone and then get theirexercises, their personalized
exercise program, back from thatright.
So your personalized exerciseprogram is going to be a lot
different than an 85-year-oldwoman who's a fall risk, right,
or a high school volleyballplayer who has hamstring
weakness, and then be able tofollow them as they progress and
(16:55):
then collect that data.
Like you said, the data ishugely valuable.
The more people we get scanned,the more people we get into the
system, the better the datagets, because the more data
points you have to collect fromand it's going to, like you said
, it has a cost, but, yes, itdoes have a cost upfront, but
it's reducing the cost on theback end oh, big time.
And that's the ultimate goal.
Our ultimate goal isvalue-based care population
(17:18):
health.
You know, the cost of medicinein this country is crazy, right?
We all know that it's up to 17%of GDP.
It's absolutely insane, and theonly way you're going to bend
that curve is you've got to beearly intervene early and
especially in themusculoskeletal world, and we
also have to do things.
We've got to look at ourselvestoo.
We've got to find those guys.
(17:38):
In any group there's going tobe a few guys who are outliers
for whatever reason, and you gotto look at those and you got to
kind of reign them in, getpeople doing things pretty much
the same way.
We don't want to dictateexactly how people practice
medicine, but you got to bedoing the right thing.
You got to be doing it.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Well, maybe you can tell me if this even exists.
But I was just thinking in theorthopedic world with with cars
(18:12):
and saying, look man, this isaccording to our charts and the
information and data that wehave.
The way that seat is isabsolutely not the right thing
for somebody.
You probably need to go in thisdirection with it.
I mean, does that somethinglike that?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
exist.
Yeah, I mean, they've hadergonomic analysis like stuff
like that for years, but I meannot the way you're talking,
though.
Like yeah, I'm not sure howthat would directly apply, but
yeah, I mean there's so manyuses for this, you know, as as
we go down the road, it's justgoing to be limited to people's
imaginations and how it's used,but the key is getting the data
and being able to do somethingwith it.
(18:48):
That's, that's constructive and,like I said, we're right at the
very beginning, right now,right, you, you, I mean, nobody
knows this exists.
So, hopefully, as people starthearing about it, then you know,
like the the Malcolm Gladwellstages of adoption of any new
technology you get your earlyadopters and then you get a lot
of growth.
and then you get the explosivegrowth.
And, like I said, this isapplicable across all segments
(19:11):
of society.
Think about the factory workerwho does repetitive work at work
all day, or the constructionguy who's shoveling and things
like that.
You could apply this to themreduce risk.
Workman's comp claims go down.
Work time goes up.
Everyone benefits riskworkman's comp claims go down,
work time goes up, everything.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Everyone benefits well, so I mean, uh, I'm sure
I'm assuming that, like you guysare, are running this for
special operators, right, likeyou're trying to get this into
the special operations fieldcorrect.
Um, now I would assume you guysdo a baseline, like like, if
I'm a new SOF operator, the veryfirst thing that they're going
(19:47):
to want to do is, okay, baselinewith this system.
And when I come back off of thedeployment I've been blown up
15 times.
Whatever, I'm going to do thatassessment again.
And then it's going to assessand say, look, these are the
changes.
Let's go through and actuallysit down and have an interview
of, okay, what happened on yourdeployment and we need to figure
out how it got to this point,and then we've got to figure out
(20:09):
how to correct that.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Is that part of it?
Yeah, even beforehand, though,think about your training for a
mission.
You scan during the trainingphase and you identify certain
weaknesses, like your lack offlexibility may predispose you
to hamstring injuries.
So we're going to put you on ahamstrings training program,
because what happens when you godown range and you pull a
hamstring right?
That's a.
That's a bad thing.
So now, all of a sudden, you'rea liability.
You have to be Aravac or, or,or, or whatever.
(20:31):
Or suck it up, or just suck itup, but you know, if you can
prevent that right beforehand,that's that's even more
important than dealing with itwhen you get back.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think there's, uh, there's
other things too that you knoworthopedic, muscular skeletal.
That's what orthopedic is right, right, exactly, um.
But let me ask you this youknow what are what studies exist
out there where, if I go outand from a concussion nothing
happened to me physically, butfrom a concussion of a bomb or
grenade or whatever a breach, Igot a TBI?
(21:11):
How does just that TBI eventhough I wasn't nothing
physically happened to me whenthat explosion happened, but how
does that TBI affect mymuscular skeletal system?
And I think I'll bet youthere's something there too.
I, I, I will bet my testicleson it, don't?
We're going to edit that out.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
But yeah, it's a good bet, Cause you're right, okay,
yes.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
I win.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
That's mine still.
I remember going.
I trained at Walt, the oldWalter Reed on 16th street, and
now that they have the newWalter Reed at Bethesda Naval
Hospital, I went and visited andlooked at the technologies that
they have and the way they weredealing with these you know
they have multiple amputeescoming back.
This is at the height ofAfghanistan and the TBIs.
(21:56):
They actually came up with aroom.
There's only two of them in theworld there's one in San
Antonio and there's one inBethesda and it's a large dome
and you get on a treadmillthere's actually two individual
treadmills and as you're walkingon the treadmill it's flashing
pictures and math equations andstuff up in the thing and it's
for these guys with tbi who aretrying to retrain their brain.
(22:16):
Yeah, both for you know, balanceand strength and coordination
as well as cognitively, so thetwo are interrelated one.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Oh geez, because you?
Because a friend of mine, helost some limbs and talking with
him after the fact, he stillthinks that his limbs are there.
His brain tells him his limbsare there Now.
(22:45):
Some people would think, there,now, that's, that's just a.
Some people would think, okay,that's a thought.
But no, if that's a thought,then that transfers to your
whole muscular skeletal systembecause your nerves are.
I mean it's all connected.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
It's called phantom pain.
It's been around.
Been around since.
We've known about it since thecivil war.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, you know phantom pain.
But I mean, how does that so?
If my brain's telling me that Istill have that limb, then I
guess my, and correct me if I'mwrong my muscles are still
acting as if I have that limb,at least tightening and right
the nerves are firing anyway,yeah yeah, and I, I mean, I holy
cow like this.
What you guys are doing on thisis awesome.
There's a group group that, umrecently we we had on here, uh,
(23:26):
they do.
It's what's called the 38challenge.
They're big on to uh TBI, ctewith the NFL players, um, and
they're doing a lot of stuffwith a brain type medicine, and
I, I, I think it'd beinteresting to get you both in
one room and talk about this,all the same stuff, and you know
(23:47):
, I'll, I'll bet something good,really good, comes out of that,
some kind of collaboration orsomething I don't know.
That'd be pretty cool, though,yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
It'd be interesting to see if we could determine,
through our screening process,the early stages of CTE.
Right, yeah, cause you getthese athletes 10, 15, you know
even less than that 5, 10 yearsinto the league.
Um, they probably all have alittle bit of yeah, especially
the linemen, because they'rethey're hitting their heads all
the time.
And is there something we candetermine in the screening that
points to that?
Speaker 1 (24:16):
and that would be a great study, because right now
they, um, what you know what?
Uh, uh, brant mccartney is you,he's kind of the leading dude
for this.
Um, he was.
He told us, you know, theydon't know that you have you
cannot be diagnosed with CTEuntil after you're dead.
At this point they have to,like, cut your head open and
look at your brain to see, isthat is that accurate?
(24:38):
Yeah, it is so.
So how revolutionizing wouldthat be if something with what
you guys are doing leads to thediagnosis of CTE without dying
Like holy shit man, that's likeright Before it gets to the end
stage, it becomes obvious, rightyeah?
That's huge.
(24:58):
That's huge.
See, I'm glad I put that bed onmy testicles and I won.
Damn it.
Yeah, um, okay.
So I should have asked you thisbefore, when you guys were
first going over through ourfirst introductions how long ago
did you start with CAO, like,when did you become the
(25:18):
president, or did you start withCAO as an executive?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah, we formed CAO about 13 years ago.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
In order to kind of deal with this switch between
private practice and employedmedicine.
There was a bunch of us inprivate practice who wanted to
stay that way, so we formed CAOby joining 24 different
independent orthopedic groupsinto one one group.
Right, we merged 24 groupstogether.
Um, that was quite a challengeand I'd been president since day
one.
(25:47):
Um and uh, you know we've donevery well.
We're up to 28, 29 groups nowWow, and we cover pretty much
all of the DMV Northern Virginia, maryland and DC and it's been
great.
So it's allowed us to stay inprivate practice, it's allowed
us to do some very neat thingsand allowed us to create
Medvanta, which basically wefunded ourselves.
(26:11):
We funded all this ourselves.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Because we are very much against taking any private
equity money because they ownyou and I don't want to be owned
.
So, uh, you know.
So I'm very proud of that andwhat we've, what we've done, and
uh, I think there's greatthings that come now what?
Speaker 1 (26:29):
so we were talking a little bit about what you know,
how you see the future, but isthere any other things that you
could talk about that you haveon your growth template of other
organizations or companies thatare kind of going in this realm
that may be on the line tostart soon?
Is there anything like that outthere there?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
are a lot of big orthopedic still private
practice orthopedic groupsaround the country who are doing
very similar things to whatwe're doing.
As far as CAO goes, I don'tknow of anybody who's doing what
we're doing with what Vant isdoing.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Who's not a PE-backed third-party vendor kind?
Of person right.
So we want to have all of ourpieces and parts homegrown and
fully owned by us, so you're notbeholden to anybody.
Because as soon as you startsigning contracts with third,
you have to have some thirdparty vendors.
Don't get me wrong.
But you know, if your majorpieces and parts are owned by
somebody else and you're justsigning a contract with them,
(27:23):
they can pull the rug out ontoyou at any time.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, and I mean, you can't be dependent on your
vision.
Like like if you're dependent onsomeone else and it's your
dream and your vision and you'rerunning with it and it takes
that one little link to destroythat.
Fuck that Exactly.
Nah, screw that.
Now, what about?
So you talked a little bitabout, we talked a little bit
about people losing limbs andstuff.
So how does like robotic limbsand stuff play into this?
(27:49):
Because I feel like that has aplace here.
I mean, if it's orthopedic andyou're attaching a robotic limb
to nerves and and this has beenalready been developed this
stuff exists.
How does this with med vanta?
How does this all roll intothat?
Speaker 2 (28:04):
I mean it's something we'd have to look at.
It's not something that's, atleast in our current practice,
prevalent enough for us toreally yeah develop a separate
line for it, but certainly if westart getting involved with the
military.
I mean, there's so manyentities out there right, I've
dealt with a few of them in mypractice but through the VA or
whatever, there's certainlyopportunity there.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
There is opportunity and I'll tell you what man.
The military is the correctplace in my opinion.
I'm biased to start that,because those dudes lost their
limbs for the country.
You know what I mean, and Ithink they deserve it.
If someone's going to go thatroute and do the exploration on
this and start something goodwith it, it needs to start with
(28:47):
the military veterans that havelost limbs in wars and the vast
majority of amputees in thiscountry, especially when you
talk about multiple amputees,are are are military veterans.
Yes, absolutely Yep, and youknow they 100% deserve every
piece of attention someone cangive to them to help them live a
better life, the rest of theirlife, Uh, after what they
sacrificed, uh, you know there'sa lot of, there's a lot to be
(29:11):
done in that space.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Oh, I mean I'm old, but when I started at Walter
Reed 91, yeah, 91, I was aresident at Walter Reed they
still had leather and wood fortheir prosthetics.
I mean literally there were nomicrochips, there were no
pneumatic hinges, there was noneof that.
That all came relativelyquickly.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
But I mean how far that stuff has come it's a whole
different conversation isabsolutely amazing it is and, um
, I don't think most public, uh,they don't even know, like they
don't even have an idea of howfar they've come.
There's some people that areworking that sec or, and you
know, there's a couple amputeesthat I know that um have been
(29:55):
part of testing and stuff likethat.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
So they, they have a very good idea what's going on
with it, but it's so faradvanced it's crazy, um, I mean
just in the five years I was atwalter reed um, I took care of a
guy who was a golden dite wholost both his legs in a jump in
a practice jump, he lost.
He was a below knee amputee onone side and above knee amputee
on the other.
Yeah, and because we had comeso far in just a few years, he
(30:19):
was the first double amputeeever to go back on active duty.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Wow, yeah, it's pretty cool you know, there was
a guy I worked with um he he wasa he was a r, lost his leg, got
a prosthetic, went back andqualified for the Rangers again,
was a team leader and thenwrote books.
We actually talked about thiswith the 38 Challenge guys,
(30:45):
wrote books, went on to doamazing.
He was the epitome of who anAmerican hero is.
I mean, like this dude overcameevery obstacle he could ever
think of, went back out and didit again and I, you know, not
too long ago he committedsuicide.
I think it was two years ago.
But you know then, if, if thething is, the whole reason why I
bring that up is because a lotof people, when people don't
(31:08):
realize, think about losing alimb.
Okay, really, think about this.
How much your life changes.
Like, really, people reallyneed to try to understand this.
It is not something that ohyeah, you know, I lost my arm,
I'll be fine.
Your entire life changes.
Everything, your legsespecially.
(31:28):
Everything that you do changes,not to mention the pain that
you're going to have the rest ofyour life.
And to lose sight of that andto not think about why people
commit suicide.
I can't even imagine what thoseguys deal with, especially
being this hero that I'm talkingabout.
(31:51):
Like the guy was a stud man.
It was just someone you look atand be like man.
I want to be that guy, um.
But anyway, a little bit offtopic on that Um, but still
important to talk about, um.
So, uh, I'm going to go back toyour minx.
Can you do a little data checkfor me?
Can you look up Dr Nick Grassoand the reason why I want you to
(32:13):
?
So he, he won the best doctorin Baltimore award or something
like that.
I don't know what it's called,but for like multiple years, and
I just want to be factuallycorrect because I think it was
like 1996, 97.
I was basically every year,except for 2022 because Fauci
took that, cause he's an asswife.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Now there's a sorry, I won at that.
Baltimore Magazine does a thingevery year Best Docs and it
pulls a bunch of people and it'sa peer-reviewed thing.
Right, the docs vote for otherdocs.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Look, man, that's the best award to get if it's a
peer-review award.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yeah, it is.
It's awesome.
It's amazing.
There are a large number of CAOdocs who make best of Baltimore
or best of DC, so I Iinformally I'm sorry to call you
dude, but that's just mylanguage.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
But listen.
So I'm a big fan of peerreviews because you know, in the
military and stuff that I wasdoing there, your peer
evaluations are huge.
If you are winning an awardfrom your peers and something
like that, that's ginormous.
It's not some asshole that'svoting that knows nothing about
what you're doing, it's yourpeers that are doing the exact
(33:21):
same thing.
They're saying now that dude'sthe best dude and that guy needs
it.
You know what I mean.
Like that's huge man.
That is ginormous.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
That's ginormous.
I think we had 30-somethingdocs in CAO who voted best of
Baltimore or best of DC.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Yes, that was awesome .
Okay, so you just pulled uphere.
Yeah, yeah, 2014, 2016, 2020,2021, 2022.
And I'm just going to remindanyone that's listening or
eventually watching this onYouTube Baltimore Magazine that
kind of includes some of thosebig name hospitals there.
(33:56):
What's the big one there?
Hopkins Hopkins, johns Hopkinshey, look, I've had a couple
tequilas.
I'm allowed to forget stuff.
So, okay, we're on the.
I have to ask you, how has thebridge affected you?
We just talked about Baltimore,so I need to go into this a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
It hasn't affected me at all, really, because I live
in Howard County.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Ah, that's right.
Okay, so you're on the otherside, yeah, other side.
And I'm sure people who travelthe Beltway every day, probably
on the western side a lot oftraffic is getting diverted that
(34:41):
way.
But yeah, other than that Ihaven't really noticed anything.
Man, like when I saw that, it'slike holy cow man, like that
thing is the key bridge.
Geez man, that's pretty major.
Uh.
Um, there were some otherthings in baltimore that I was
gonna that.
So carrie and I, the minx and Icall her minx on the podcast we
lived outside of Baltimore andthere was a lot of things we
loved about Baltimore.
I mean, there's a lot of thingswe did not like about Baltimore
.
Things went south there for alittle bit, but the big thing is
(35:04):
crime.
Like I'm so pissed off anddisgusted about crime and
corruption and we had a policeofficer that lived right next
door to us Great dude, prettysure that guy was pretty damn
corrupt too.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Pretty sure.
No, it's very sad it is.
It's a great city.
There's history there.
Yeah, there's great stuff to godo up there.
I love going to the ball gamesyou know Ravens and the Orioles,
Great restaurants, but my wifewon't even go in.
She won't go to Baltimoreanymore.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
I don't allow her to drive through.
And the thing is, it's becauseI feel like you cannot protect
yourself if you needed to.
I could be wrong about that,it's just how I feel.
But it's a beautiful city.
It's a beautiful city andthere's so much history there,
(35:56):
the restaurants, and it's ashame that some people kind of
had to go down the drain.
But our son was born inBaltimore Harbor Hospital Is
that what it's called?
Right?
Yeah, I mean it was a prettynice hospital there.
It was right on the water there.
It was pretty cool.
But I almost got mugged drivinghome after he was born and
(36:17):
trying to help someone out.
You know, the guys came out ofthe woods, I got on my truck and
they thought they were going tojump me and I was like, don't
do it.
And they didn't and I drove off.
But it's like you know why?
Why does it have to be likethat there?
(36:37):
Why, on, man jeez?
But anyways, I digress fromthat.
We're gonna go back to thetopic.
Do you guys have any questions?
For not the press, nothing, oh,come on.
Come on, there's something,anything anything.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
So what'd you do when you were in the marines?
Speaker 1 (36:48):
oh, what I do?
Oh, man, I was.
I enlisted to be a cook.
I did, yeah, I was going to bea cook.
And then I'm pretty sure they Ihad a mistake on my ASVAB test
(37:09):
and they were like no, this dudecannot be a cook.
They put me in some kind ofintel thing.
And then, when I was in Aschool, I met a radio recon guy.
He was my platoon sergeant andI was like that's what I want to
do right there and that's whatI did my entire career.
You know, I went to radio recon.
I still live and breathe tothis day.
(37:29):
In fact, two nights ago theradio recon brothers came over
and we're sitting around thistable bullshit and, um, you know
, did Mars sock, did, uh, youknow the debt.
One thing, and which I?
You know I didn't really evenbelong there.
I should.
I didn't have the maturity togo to that level of a unit, um,
but uh, you know, it was I.
That's where we met, you know,she.
(37:51):
I'm not going to tell the storyof that, but we met as Marines.
I ended up getting out as agunny and then continuing doing
the same stuff, but for otherpeople.
But great fate was awesome wasawesome If I would have been a
(38:13):
cook in the Marine Corps.
Holy fuck, I would have.
Probably, I have no idea Iwould have got out after four
years.
I would have been in jail.
I'd have no idea.
I probably would have been.
I would have got out because ofa dishonorable discharge from
doing lines of coke off astripper's ass or something,
because I would have not want tohave been a cook.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
I'm just saying you don't strike me as a cook.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Well, the funny thing is, I did go to culinary school
before the Marine Corps, andthat's why I was like, yeah,
screw cook, let's go.
But I don't do that.
I mean, I like to cook as ahobby now, but working in the
kitchen no, not for me.
But working in the kitchen no,not for me.
(38:57):
Yeah, and so where were youstationed at when you were in
the Army?
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Oh my goodness, Alabama, texas, alabama,
bethesda, georgia, walter Reed,korea, fort Meade.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Fort Knox when you were in Georgia were you at
Benning or whatever?
Speaker 2 (39:14):
No, I was at Hunter Army Airfield, which is part of
the Fort Stewart, but I was aflight surgeon at the time.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Yeah, Fort Stewart.
Yep, so in our not the radiorecon field, but another signals
intelligence field, fort Gordon, fort Gordon, we had a lot of
guys there.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Yeah, that's where the masters is.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Yeah, right now, actually, we might be able to
put up on the TV.
I'm just saying we don't needthat.
Put the masters up, babe.
Come on Seriously, you got this.
Put masters up, just make sureit's muted.
(39:55):
Yeah, I love watching.
I mean, I like the end of theMasters, I think probably around
5 o'clock.
It's going to be the best todaybecause that's going to be the
last part of it.
But I love that last part,especially if it's close.
It's going to be amazing andfrom what I hear, it's pretty
close right now.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Yeah, there were three guys within a shot of each
other, so hell, yeah, yeah, um.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Do you guys watch UFC at all?
Speaker 2 (40:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
I have.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
I have friends that are totally into it, but I don't
, yeah, oh man Like the.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Apparently the fights last night were amazing.
Um, we, you know, we've got acouple of friends that are big
into it and very involved withthe deep into the high ranks of
the UFC scene, and one of themis a trainer for one of the guys
that was fighting last night,so I have yet to call him.
(40:48):
I was going to say, if you guysare into UFC, we'll give him a
call right now and see what he'sdoing, see what's happening,
but he's a very colorful humanbeing though, so that might not
be a good idea.
He's a good friend though, man,so I actually do.
I've had a whole bunch ofquestions in the back of my head
(41:08):
as you were talking, but then Icompletely wrote a one-word
word thing and I'm like what didI mean by writing that?
I have no idea.
Oh man, son of a bitch.
Oh, you know, kendra and I weretalking.
This is not orthopedic.
(41:29):
I'm asking you this as amedical professional.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
How do?
Speaker 1 (41:39):
you feel about TRT?
I'm not sure I know what TRT is.
So, as a you know, I go and Iget my blood checked and they
tell me hey, look, dude, yourtestosterone level is a little
bit low.
We can supplement that andbring it back up to where it's
at, and then also it's going toeven out these other hormones
and chemicals in your body.
That's TRT.
Okay, how do you like?
(42:04):
How do you feel about cause?
I like I talked to a lot ofdifferent people that are
professionals within theindustry and they have different
opinions on it, and like I justI want to gather as much uh,
there, you know, there's factsand there's opinions, but from a
medical professional, youropinion actually means a lot.
It's pretty damn close to afact.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Well, I'll tell you from the orthopedic standpoint.
You want your testosterone tobe high, normal.
Right and for muscle mass, forbone strength, for a lot of
other reasons.
Right, the problem with thetestosterone is the range of
normal is so wide, okay, and Iwas at a meeting one time and
there was a real famousorthopedic surgeon up there.
(42:42):
I won't use his name, but hegoes hell.
No, I don't want to be lownormal he goes, I want to be
high normal right.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
What is?
Speaker 2 (42:47):
that.
Well, if there's a range, saythe range is from 900 to 1,800.
You don't want to be 950.
That's ridiculous.
And I don't know the exactranges because it's not what I
do.
But he was pretty adamant aboutbeing high normal.
You don't want to be extranormal.
You don't want to be like thesebodybuilders.
No, with juice, because there'sall kinds of downstream
(43:10):
problems from that.
Yeah, but if you're doing itwith a medical professional's
advice, then it's probably agood thing.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, the reason why I ask that is
because I started doing it.
I guess it was two yeah, itwasn't long ago.
But my thing was I'm not doingit until after I'm 45, and I
waited until I was after I was45, and then I did it and I
(43:41):
don't do whatever high normal is.
It's up to an average I don'tknow what normal to me is for
being active and it's beenlife-changing.
It has absolutely beenlife-changing.
But there's probably otherhealth things you've got to
(44:02):
think about with it, right.
So that's why I try to geteveryone's opinion on it, and
especially in the medical fieldand medical professionals.
But it's 100% beenlife-changing for not just
physical ability but everythingelse.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Yeah, but anything like that.
If you're doing it under amedical professional supervision
and they're testing what theyneed to test and everything, I
get worried about people who aretaking all this crazy stuff
that's available out there.
You just don't know what it'sgoing to do.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yeah, like with the program that I'm on, I have to
get tested or they won't.
Like, a physician has toprescribe anything to you, which
means if you don't go get yourblood work done, they're not
prescribing anything, and theneven then they may not like you
know, you have to, you have tomeet their standard and talk to
(44:48):
them about what your goals are,and it's a, it's an entire whole
health thing.
It's not just testosterone,it's everything involved with
that.
Um, but you know, again, I Ilike to get everyone's opinion
on that, man, because I, here, Iam telling all my buddies dude,
you got to do this, and I don'twant to be giving them bad
advice, although they've alldone it now and they're living
(45:10):
great too.
All their wives have thanked me.
Just just throw it out there.
Um, yeah, it's, but you knowanything in the medical field
that like.
So, when you like, as a doctor,you're an orthopedic doctor um,
when you get questions likethat, I like the fact that you
(45:34):
said I don't know anything aboutthat.
However, if you have a doctorthat's administering this for
you, then it's probably okay Tome.
That's the correct answer, man,because I see a lot of doctors
out there that have the titledoctor and it's not necessarily
their field field, but yetthey're throwing out their
(45:55):
expertise anyways, and that'sthe wrong way to do medicine, in
my opinion.
I'm not a medical expert and Iknow that yeah it's like don't.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
If you have got a medical problem, don't come to
me unless it's like a sprainedankle or something there you go
twist, twist it, twist your armor something.
Then come to me but yeah, I'vegot a wife and two daughters.
I get a lot of skin issues.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Oh jeez, good Lord.
I have to find thisproctologist, though.
What is it?
A GI doctor?
You have a GI doctor.
You're going to have to give methat I forgot about that.
I've told him twice now.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
I have a procedure coming up next month.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
I was like when you come to pick me up, you can meet
him.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yeah, but I asked you if he was cool and you said no,
I don't want to know.
I've got to have someone coolon here that's going to answer
questions that I have.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
You can butter him up .
Speaker 1 (46:53):
Sauce him up with some bourbon, Boom, yeah, Um,
well, I mean, I don't have awhole lot of other uh questions.
I think our conversation hasbeen pretty awesome, though, and
I would like to I would like tolink you up with, um, the, the
38 challenge guys.
Um, what was the?
The?
The nonprofit they werestarting, the Brain Lab yeah,
(47:15):
Brain Lab.
I think they're starting tomake a lot of movement and
there's a few NFL players doingit.
There's some pretty big-nameveterans that are out there in
the world that everybody knowsof, that are a part of it.
But it's pretty cool, man,because there is a there there,
(47:35):
I think.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Yeah, I mean.
This technology we're talkingabout is in its infancy right
this is like I said, five yearsago we couldn't have done this
and it's getting better andbetter and it's progressing very
quickly.
So at some point, yeah,someone's going to have to take
and look at that kind of thingand do a study to see if there's
a, like you said, is there athere there?
You know you take some patientsyou think are at high risk for
(47:57):
CTE and you do an analysis ofthem.
Take another group of patientswho have never had a brain
injury and do the same analysisof them and see if there's a
difference there.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
And that that might be predictive.
Well, so, so what else withthis technology?
Because you, like you just saidit's at the infancy, um, what
other?
What are some of the other ways?
Uh, that maybe people aren'treally even concerned.
Like, I think when, if I heardpeople talking about this, I
would immediately think you know, physician led, um, this has to
(48:28):
be something that you're justseeing if you're healthy,
whatever.
But there's, this goes waybeyond that, man.
There's, there's a lot of other, like a golf swing, Like how
could this not help your golfswing?
You know what I mean.
Like, eventually, they couldmove in that direction, or
something like that.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
You know, yeah, I mean you know swing analysis
baseball pitchers you know, all,all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
It's applicable to that.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
I mean, that stuff is there now today for the app for
the pro athletes.
Right, right you.
You go to a pga golfer and Iguarantee you his swing is
analyzed every every week, right, um?
but for the average guy he can'tafford to go get his swing
analyzed oh but if you got it onyour iphone and you just set it
up on a little stand and take aswing and it tells you, you
know what you're doing wrong.
I mean, that's this technology.
(49:15):
Like I said, the old motionanalysis labs were crazy,
expensive and huge.
Now it's going to be on youriPhone, so it's limitless.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Well, and some of these schools, like high schools
, like having something likethis at a high school level,
know, because, like you justsaid, you can't really afford
that unless you're a pro orsomething.
But what you're talking aboutis affordable for a small high
school, middle school even gradeschool.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
We're actually in in going to be rolling out very
soon with a major soccer leaguehere in northern virginia and
doing an analysis of all theirplayers and any family members
who want it.
But is that?
Speaker 1 (49:56):
the one you're involved with.
Yes, that's the same one.
We support them.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
Good and it's it's going to be, it's going to be a
learning process and hopefullythey're going to love it.
Hopefully we're going to seesome good results and you know
it's one.
It's one of those things thatit's not immediately measurable.
I mean, you put this stuff inplace and then you got to wait a
while and see are your injury,your injury rates, down or not?
And and?
That stuff will come, but thenit'll hopefully expand from
(50:19):
there.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
Well, I mean, uh, I was telling her um about, uh,
the, the, can I, can I say whoit is?
Speaker 3 (50:27):
I don't think it's been announced yet.
Okay, no.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
I won't, I won't then .
Um, we're, we're prettyinvolved with them too.
Our son goes to the academy andthen we're pretty good friends
with.
I actually used to work for theowner a while back.
He's a silent owner and then weknow them pretty well and the
program they have, man, oh myGod, is it glorious.
(50:51):
It is the complete familyprogram.
So if you can imagine going tothis property where there's a
barn, there's a bar, the kidsare running, there's a pro game
going on, that's one part of it.
(51:12):
But then all these kids aregrowing up with this program
until they become semi-pro andpro.
It's amazing and the passionlike that, the passion there, is
just so ridiculous it's soamazing.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
It's modeled after the european programs, you know
the english programs and yep andthat's exactly where uh, the
one, that's where he brings itfrom.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
We're trying to convince them.
There's an opportunity to bringa couple of lacrosse young
lacrosse team over and then growthat into the same thing that
they have with soccer.
But that's still kind of in theworkings and it wouldn't be
anything major yet.
But it's cool that you're doingthis with them because that's
(52:03):
going to kind of boil over toall the other soccer leagues and
soccer teams or academies, justlike this one.
It's going to blow over to themand it's going to come wide
range.
Everyone's following suit withwhat these guys are doing.
That program that they have isamazing, I'm telling you.
I never even imagined anythinglike that, the fact you can go
there with your family and justhave fun.
(52:23):
I had the opportunity to go takesome video of a couple of the
players.
They were actually part of alittle kids camp.
They were the coaches and whatI observed during those three
days is these players that arethe players who are coaching.
They're not just good soccerplayers, they're just good
(52:47):
humans.
And I watched, I observed someof the interactions they had
with some of these littleeight-year-olds and I was just
floored.
I was like holy shit, thatkid's 20 years old and he just
managed that like a superstar.
What that kid just did, andit's life lesson stuff.
There was this one kid.
(53:08):
They were doing this some kindof drill.
It was timed, they were teams,the ball kind of rolled off and
the best player by far on thefield was just walking along and
this kid that's always hustlingruns past him to go get the
ball.
He's like move your ass, littleeight-year-old Goes and grabs
the ball, bring it over.
(53:28):
And then one of the playershere, who's the coach for this
little league, he comes over andhe's like you will never cuss
like that on my field again andit kind of startled the kid but
then he got.
You know that's him talking uphere.
Then he gets down and kneels infront of him and he's like but
that was an amazing initiativeand you have the right frame of
(53:50):
mind.
A 20-year-old said that to aneight-year-old.
You know what I mean.
The life lesson there is justamazing and I witnessed that all
three days of that.
It was just over and overlittle things like that.
And when we go to the gameshere, the players there's three
or four of them that always comeup to where we sit and they
(54:13):
come over and shake everybody'shands.
Thank you for coming to ourgame, and that's it.
The program is just so damnamazing.
It's the fact that you guys aregetting in on that.
Um, that is a good program togrow with with this, because
they believe in it.
Speaker 3 (54:28):
Yeah, I just had a call with them last week and
talking through variouspossibilities that we have to
build out, like Medvanta plusthe CAO.
So, Medvanta for prevention andthen CAO for when they get
injured.
Now what?
And a big problem that theywere talking about is, right now
, as it stands, if they getinjured, they go somewhere else.
(54:49):
They have no idea what'shappening with that journey.
And if we can help along, keepthem in the loop, keep the
coaches in the loop on, okay.
Well, now they're in physicaltherapy.
This is how we're going to getthem back in the game and really
working alongside them thecoaches, the athletes, the
families.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
It's a huge opportunity for both of us and
the parents that are havingthese young kids grow with that
program all the way to that aregoing to see that too, and it's
going to be like.
This is going to be so awesomewhen you guys get to stroll on
like mainstream with them.
That's going to be so awesome,I'm excited about this.
It's cool.
It's cool and the person thather and I and the Minx know
(55:27):
mutually, they kind of linkedall of us up together.
You know again a good humanbeing who I'm really happy that
you guys are, have all linked intogether and you're doing great
things.
It's pretty awesome.
It's pretty awesome and youknow there's so many other
opportunities with.
(55:48):
I got to keep talking aboutthese guys because I cannot
stress how badass the program is.
So we have during the winterthey have what they call a
futsal program.
It's indoor, all the kids theygo and it's a league and there's
no games.
Really what it is is they justpractice doing foot drills with
(56:10):
a heavier soccer ball, practicedoing foot drills with a heavier
soccer ball, and the main ownerfor this program he's there
with these eight-year-oldscoaching Like the owner of the
entire, like that's his passionfor this.
He's there passionatelycoaching these little
eight-year-olds, nine-year-olds,some of them are five-year-olds
(56:30):
, because he believes in thisand the fact that he's bringing
in this type of that means hebelieves in what you are doing
too, and I'm telling you that'ssolid this dude is.
He is a pretty amazing person.
It's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (56:49):
Yeah, we're excited about it.
I think it's going to be a goodpartnership it will be, and you
had mentioned the high schools,so it's a very short leap from
this kind of thing into the highschool doing sports screenings.
My two girls both played highschool volleyball and softball
and they would get a pre-seasonphysical and that's it.
Speaker 3 (57:06):
There was no analysis there was no anything.
Speaker 1 (57:09):
This gives you another tool that could
hopefully help prevent injury.
I was going to give you a goodstory about a, a physical I had
to do once.
Should I give that story?
Oh, I mean I won't, I'll do itoff topic, but but I'll tell you
what it, what it involved, andI won't go through in the
details.
But I was doing a, so I had todo a.
(57:32):
Uh, I was supposed to go tofree fall and I had to go do my
free.
I've already done jump and allthat stuff but I had to do a
different free fall physical and, of course, uh, you know
there's parts of that that yougot to do that are not very
comfortable.
Speaker 2 (57:47):
Um, and that's the class one physical.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I won't, i'm'm not, I
don't even want to talk about oncamera or on a record that's.
This is a personal, a personalthing.
Only people, only specialpeople know about this.
Um, yeah, I mean, I, I thinkthat you know, with what you're
saying, with, like the highschool stuff, it's not a, it's
not a huge leap.
No, it's not a huge leap at all.
(58:12):
Man, like, once you guys getthis rolling, especially when it
comes to iphone, and it's not,and it's at all man, once you
guys get this rolling,especially when it comes to
iPhone and it's not just iPad,and if you could do it on iPhone
, then it's going to be a littlebit easier.
It should be easier to do onAndroid.
As far as an app, it's just thecamera capability, and I think
the Galaxy is 23 or whatever itis that camera capability is
(58:32):
just as good, if not better,than any iPhone capability right
now.
So that opportunity is going tobe there too.
That's going to be pretty cool.
Yeah, I appreciate you guyscoming.
Speaker 3 (58:46):
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
No, no, it was fun.
I mean, I hope, I think I'mpretty sure the guy that is the
other owner of the league thatyou guys are talking about is
going to come on the podcast andit would be cool to get you
guys on with him and we justtalk about soccer, because it
(59:09):
will go right into the medicalstuff.
Speaker 2 (59:12):
Yeah, especially after we get the program rolled
out.
Speaker 1 (59:14):
That's what I mean, like after that you know, I
think that'd be pretty cool.
You know, mix it up a littlebit and you know, get two
different professions that havelinked together and just
bullshit about how yourprofessions are intertwined and
you know what goodness that'screating.
But yeah, he had said he'sgoing to come on.
It's just, you know, findingthe time.
(59:35):
And then I think the time nowthat I know this is, let's wait
until you guys get this rolledout with them and then bring you
guys on together.
I think it'd be pretty bad-ass.
That'd be great, yeah.
So all right, well, we're goingto end this segment then.
And man man, awesomeconversation.
Yeah, thank you.
There wasn't a whole lot offuckery on this one, but that's
(59:56):
good, that's a good thing,that's not a bad thing.
Sometimes there's a little bittoo much fuckery going on.
So, all right, cool, that's awrap, all right.
That was a ridiculous countdown.
But we're back with Not thePress podcast, and I have some
awesome guests today and I'mjust going to go around the
table here real quick.
We got Dr Nick Grasso fromBaltimore.
He's going to explain a littlebit about what he does, some of
the companies he's worked for,what he leads now as a president
for what I know of twodifferent organizations, and he
(00:24):
has a person that works for himhere.
Her name's Kendra Rourke andshe has a very interesting
background too as well, doingthe same type of health work.
But first, before we go to them, minx, let's just get that out
of the way.
You're going to have to sayhello real quick.
Do it Hello.
That was like a five.
(00:44):
All right, we're going to workon that.
So, dr Nick Grasso, let's go toyou first.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Great Thanks, Scott.
My name is Nick Grasso.
I'm an orthopedic surgeonprivate practice up in the
Baltimore area.
I spent 23 years in the Armyprior to going into private
practice, Got out a very longtime ago and I'm now the
president of two organizations.
One is Centers for AdvancedOrthopedics, which is the second
largest orthopedic group in thecountry, and Medvanta, which is
(01:14):
a next-generation healthtransformation company that will
hopefully help improve healthcare in this country.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, and I have a whole bunch of cool questions
about what you just said andsome of the stuff I was involved
with with Kendra In fact,that's how we all got here today
is because of Kendra.
But first, Kendra, who are you?
Speaker 3 (01:31):
So, kendra Rourke, I'm a nurse by trade.
I've been a nurse for about 20years.
I'm the VP of CareTransformation with MedVanta.
I've been with MedVanta forabout three years now, really
trying to put forward themission of transforming
healthcare.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
See, that's amazing.
That's what we want on thisshow people that have action,
Boom.
So one of the things you hadsaid.
Can I call you, Doc Nick?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Dr Nick is what everyone calls me.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yes, I love it.
So first one's going to be areally weird question, but I'm
dead serious.
Do you know any proctologists?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
that I can have on this show.
No, actually I don't Damn it.
No, and they don't go byproctologists anymore.
I think it is called by GIgastroenterologists.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Oh, okay, and you don't, I'm going to find one.
I'm going to find one.
I have.
I have very legit questions forthose people.
Okay, so damn it.
So, 23 years in the Army, whatwas your, as you can relate it
to what your executive positionsare now like?
(02:38):
What was the best takeaway from23 years in the Army to bring
to what you're doing now?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
That's a great question, because I wasn't
medical when I when I came in.
I came in straight out ofcollege.
I was a line guy for four yearsand then I went to medical
school with the military andthen did all my training at
Walter Reed and had variouspositions, um and my duty
assignments.
I was chief of a couple ofdifferent orthopedic departments
at hospitals and I think what Ilearned the most was I never
wanted to be part of a largeorganization like that again,
(03:08):
which is why I went into privatepractice and I think what's
pushed me and all of us who areinvolved with CAO and MedVanta
into doing what we're doing istrying to preserve that private
practice model right.
It's under a lot of stressnowadays in this country.
There are threats to theprivate practice of medicine and
we're trying to preserve thatand to give some alternatives to
(03:29):
folks who might be consideringgoing a different way.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Well, let's back up a little bit on that real quick,
if you don't mind.
When you say there's threats toprivate practice, what are some
of those threats and how did weget here?
How did we get to where we'reat today?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, great question.
Most people don't realizewhat's going on.
Ten years ago, 75% of thedoctors in this country were in
private practice 25% were eitheremployed by a hospital or
worked in academia or in themilitary.
Here we are, fast forward tenyears.
Those numbers have completelyflipped.
We are now 75 of the doctors inthis country are employed
(04:07):
either by a big payer, ahospital system, academia or the
military, and only 25 are inprivate practice.
And the reason why that'simportant is, you know, there's
a few things we know aboutprivate practice.
One is it provides care at amuch cheaper rate than hospitals
do.
Hospitals, and and and are muchmore expensive, and when you're
talking about trying to controlthe cost of care, we feel
(04:29):
private practice is the way todo that.
We provide care that's as good,if not better, than the
hospitals do, but we do it in amuch more efficient way.
So we think it's worthpreserving, preserving, and if
we lose private practice, we'regoing to be at the mercy of
hospital systems or PE backedgroups who really only care
(04:50):
about turning a profit, and I'mnever going to, I'm never gonna
let that happen while I'mworking.
I've got a few years left.
Your family goes to thatprivate practice.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
They know your family , you know them, they know like,
if you go through that, likewhen I was growing up I had his
name was Dr Varus.
He was our team doctor forbasketball football.
All the families went to hispractice.
He knew every single member ofthose families, he knew what to
treat, he knew when you know theperson and you know who you're
(05:33):
dealing with, you can treat it.
You treat things differently,right, absolutely, and I think
that's to me, money aside stuff,and I agree with you on all
that.
That's the awesomeness ofprivate practice.
And if that goes away, man, holycow, do we lose something Like
we're?
We're losing a big thing insociety.
Society change man, becausethat type of shit is important
(05:57):
across the board, absolutely.
I mean, when you look at um,now, again, I'm not a woman, I'm
not gonna, I'm not gonna claimI have experience in this.
However, I can only imaginethat, um, a woman and a woman
doctor, a gynecologist, um, justuh, as one aspect of this, okay
, so if you have a privatepractice and a woman becomes
(06:20):
comfortable with that doctorbecause of woman stuff, you're
seeing the same person all thetime.
They know you, you know them.
When that becomes out of privatepractice.
How does that change that typeof relationship?
I mean, because that's somevery important stuff that people
don't think about.
And I'll go back to theproctologist.
I want the same dude who'slooked down that cannon before.
(06:45):
I don't want anyone elselooking down it.
Um, so I'm just saying, like,like, this stuff's very, very
important, um, and and people,I'm glad you're bringing
attention to this and you guysare actually taking action um to
to keep private practice alivewithin the medical field.
I wish they'd do it in bigpharma too.
Fuck those guys, by the way, sosorry.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Okay, so I'm going to go back to Kendra.
So, kendra, we we've got somevery funny video from today.
Um, you have me trying to dostuff where I needed to be
flexible not a flexible guy tobe flexible, I'm a flexible guy
(07:29):
and I'll have that footage.
But it was for Medvanta andthey're going down to soft week
and they're going to have avideo there.
But so you were, you weresaying what that system that you
had.
You had a iPad up.
Explain a little bit about whatthat is and how that plays into
CAO and what you guys are doingbetween the two organizations,
or does it even marry up?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Sure.
So, yes, it does marry up, andso what a lot of MedVanta is
trying to do is go on upstreamto the prevention side of things
.
We're not trying to takepatients away from CAO or
physician groups, but we knowthat we can delay or even
mitigate certain problems, whichalso can reduce the cost of
healthcare, make it better forthe patients, because really and
(08:12):
, with my nursing background andI'm sure Dr Gross can attest to
this too it really comes downto that good patient care, and
when you get out of a privatepractice model, it becomes more
of like a machine and you'rejust getting them through,
getting them through and reallynot getting to know that person.
And so, with this digitalassessment, it's a risk of
injury assessment.
(08:32):
It can also look at balanceissues, stability, flexibility,
those types of things, and whiletech is very important and
extremely helpful in theorthopedic field, we also know
that you have to have a humanbeing behind that as well, yes,
and so what we're doing is usingthis technology to help our
humans be more accurate.
So they're going back through,watching the videos of the
(08:54):
assessments, looking at theresults and they're coming up
with an individualized plan forcorrective exercises that are
being monitored.
We can do it digital.
We can also send them to apractice such as the Centers for
Advanced Orthopedics to getthem into physical therapy,
those types of things tohopefully reduce the need for
surgery but know that, if andwhen they do need surgery, that
(09:17):
we have a good private practicelike.
Cao to send them.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
We were talking a little bit before about
preventive.
Well, I mean, we were talking alittle bit before about
preventive, and so I'm not goingto try and swing this back to
Big Pharma, because they hatepreventive, because that's not
how they make money, butpreventive.
I feel like private practicebrings preventive, and why
(09:46):
wouldn't people want to?
And a group of people teachingme how to prevent myself from
getting hurt, that tells me theyactually do care.
You know what I mean.
And I don't see a lot of otherorganizations that aren't
private practices or privategroups that actually put that
out there, because I don'tbelieve they care, I believe
(10:06):
they want people to get hurt.
Actually, I mean, I don't know,conspiracy theory, I don't know
, but that kind of seems like itto me.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, I read an article years ago.
Somebody smarter than me wrotethat we don't have healthcare in
this country.
We have illness care, right.
People don't go to the doctoruntil they're sick Reactive, not
proactive.
Reactive, not proactive.
And if you look at themusculoskeletal our, our little
piece of that, it's like injurycare.
We, we, we get the person afterthey've been injured.
You know, we get the collegeathlete with the ACL tear, we
(10:35):
get the weekend warrior with thewith the Achilles rupture, uh,
the old person who fell down andbroke their hip, you know.
And if you can prevent that, Imean, like we were talking
earlier years ago, 10 years ago,in order to do this kind of
motion analysis, I would havehad to take you to this big
motion lab with hundreds ofthousand dollars worth of
cameras and computers and we'dhave to put reflective markers
on you to go through this.
(10:57):
The technology has evolved tothe point that now we're able to
do with an iPad, right, with noreflective markers, and we're
hoping soon to be able to do itwith a smartphone.
And if we can intervene tothese people, just think about
what it means across allsegments of society, from the
elderly and fall risk athletes.
We know young female athleteshigh school, college level are
much more prone to ACL injuriesif you could prevent those.
(11:21):
And there've been elderlybalance classes for years.
There have been plyometricsroutines for high school
athletes and things like that,but that's kind of a blanket
solution targeting everybody butno one specifically.
This will allow us to targetpeople individually, their going
on.
You just gave me an idea.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Oh, it's amazing.
So not only can you do likeright now you're doing
individuals, but the way likewithin marketing and stuff.
You've got cameras that candetect somebody's mood because
of AI stuff.
So what if you were to docommunities like hey look, dude,
your village, 90% of youmotherfuckers have some bad
(12:16):
posture.
You know what I mean.
So we got to do somethingpreventive here, you know, we
got to help you out.
I think that's kind of thedirection that this is going
Like.
If you have the system and thesoftware and the mechanism to
chart that out with a cameratraining that model for a larger
(12:38):
population, I mean, granted,there would have to be some left
and right lateral limits ofwhere the camera's placed this,
that and the other buteventually I bet you you can get
there.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
That'd be pretty badass man.
Yeah, it's like I used to go tothe mall with my wife and I'd
watch people walking around.
I'd go, oh that guy needs atotal knee and oh, that guy
needs a hip and she would makefun of me.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
I'd go.
But cow, that's like a.
It's evil thinking about thisbecause it's a moneymaker.
But you know what?
It'll help people, It'll reallyhelp people, and you could do
analysis.
If this were ever to come tofruition, you could go to, like
you know those historic bluezones in the world and look at
how they are with posture andwhatever orthopedic stuff, and
(13:24):
then go to like you know, Idon't know what's that town we
used to live in by Millersville,Glen Burnie, and compare the
two and be like, okay, who's gotthe better posture here and why
?
Is it diet, Is it lifestyle?
Are they walking?
What are the people in GlenBurnie doing?
They're smoking on the frontporch.
You know what I mean.
Like there's, there's a.
I think there's a there there,though.
You know what I mean.
Like there's, I think there's athere there, though you know
(13:44):
what I mean.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
And I think, to add to that, we have access to so
much more data than we ever had.
So we can.
We have a whole tech teamthat's pulling data from
different sources, and what weintend to do is take that data,
put AI on top of it and thenlook at some of those predictive
patterns so you take that data,you overlay it with the digital
(14:07):
data, the screenings.
I mean that's some powerfulstuff.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
It is, it's really affect populations.
It is and I don't.
I'm not sure if you can answerthis.
So how?
How quickly, like when, when Iwas on that camera today, or the
iPad, how quickly is itdetermining what I am on
whatever chart?
Is it doing it immediately oris that a post-process thing?
Speaker 3 (14:31):
It's immediately so what it does, and we didn't do
it today just for the sake oftime.
But typically what we would dois put in your gender, your date
of birth, your height, yourweight and if you're
right-handed or left-handed, inwhich foot basically, you kick
with your dominant foot and itcompares you to people of your
same gender, your same weightyour same height, but it is
(14:53):
immediate.
So, as we were measuring you,it was giving us, for example,
range of motion score based onyour specific characters, from
the data that they've researched.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Look, I know you guys are trying to do the right
thing from a health standpoint,but I'm telling you, in the
marketing world, this would berevolutionary With what you're
coming on pushing it down theroad of love.
Because, think about it, nikeand I hate Nike, but I'm just
going to put them becauseeverybody knows who Nike is it,
uh, nike and I hate nike, butI'm just going to put them
(15:26):
because everybody knows who nikeis.
Um, so you got a bunch ofpeople that have bad posture and
then you know that through youranalytics and you, you give
that data to a shoe company.
Be like, look, you need tomarket this product to them
because they need it, and thisis the reason why I've given you
the information.
You bought the information, runwith it and then, whatever,
(15:48):
however, they market that, butthat's valuable information,
that's very, very valuableinformation that people will pay
for.
But whatever, I mean, it's amarketing thing, it's not a.
Actually it does help the world.
I mean, come on, someone's gotto bring it right.
Anyways, I'm going to reel backa little bit.
So, one of the things that I Ido have some questions about
(16:11):
Baltimore, but we'll get to that.
I want to.
I want to know more about the,the, the medical plan or what,
what you guys have buildingright now.
So you talked about your planfrom this assessment going from
iPad to iPhone.
What's the next leap after that?
Like, what's the five-yearoutlook on this?
Speaker 2 (16:31):
So what we would love to see is everyone have an app
on their phone, right, and theycan do the analysis on their
phone and then get theirexercises, their personalized
exercise program, back from thatright.
So your personalized exerciseprogram is going to be a lot
different than an 85-year-oldwoman who's a fall risk, right,
or a high school volleyballplayer who has hamstring
weakness, and then be able tofollow them as they progress and
(16:55):
then collect that data.
Like you said, the data ishugely valuable.
The more people we get scanned,the more people we get into the
system, the better the datagets, because the more data
points you have to collect fromand it's going to, like you said
, it has a cost, but, yes, itdoes have a cost upfront, but
it's reducing the cost on theback end oh, big time.
And that's the ultimate goal.
Our ultimate goal isvalue-based care population
(17:18):
health.
You know, the cost of medicinein this country is crazy, right?
We all know that it's up to 17%of GDP.
It's absolutely insane, and theonly way you're going to bend
that curve is you've got to beearly intervene early and
especially in themusculoskeletal world, and we
also have to do things.
We've got to look at ourselvestoo.
We've got to find those guys.
(17:38):
In any group there's going tobe a few guys who are outliers
for whatever reason, and you gotto look at those and you got to
kind of reign them in, getpeople doing things pretty much
the same way.
We don't want to dictateexactly how people practice
medicine, but you got to bedoing the right thing.
You got to be doing it.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Well, maybe you can tell me if this even exists.
But I was just thinking in theorthopedic world with with cars
(18:12):
and saying, look man, this isaccording to our charts and the
information and data that wehave.
The way that seat is isabsolutely not the right thing
for somebody.
You probably need to go in thisdirection with it.
I mean, does that somethinglike that?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
exist.
Yeah, I mean, they've hadergonomic analysis like stuff
like that for years, but I meannot the way you're talking,
though.
Like yeah, I'm not sure howthat would directly apply, but
yeah, I mean there's so manyuses for this, you know, as as
we go down the road, it's justgoing to be limited to people's
imaginations and how it's used,but the key is getting the data
and being able to do somethingwith it.
(18:48):
That's, that's constructive and,like I said, we're right at the
very beginning, right now,right, you, you, I mean, nobody
knows this exists.
So, hopefully, as people starthearing about it, then you know,
like the the Malcolm Gladwellstages of adoption of any new
technology you get your earlyadopters and then you get a lot
of growth.
and then you get the explosivegrowth.
And, like I said, this isapplicable across all segments
(19:11):
of society.
Think about the factory workerwho does repetitive work at work
all day, or the constructionguy who's shoveling and things
like that.
You could apply this to themreduce risk.
Workman's comp claims go down.
Work time goes up.
Everyone benefits riskworkman's comp claims go down,
work time goes up, everything.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Everyone benefits well, so I mean, uh, I'm sure
I'm assuming that, like you guysare, are running this for
special operators, right, likeyou're trying to get this into
the special operations fieldcorrect.
Um, now I would assume you guysdo a baseline, like like, if
I'm a new SOF operator, the veryfirst thing that they're going
(19:47):
to want to do is, okay, baselinewith this system.
And when I come back off of thedeployment I've been blown up
15 times.
Whatever, I'm going to do thatassessment again.
And then it's going to assessand say, look, these are the
changes.
Let's go through and actuallysit down and have an interview
of, okay, what happened on yourdeployment and we need to figure
out how it got to this point,and then we've got to figure out
(20:09):
how to correct that.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Is that part of it?
Yeah, even beforehand, though,think about your training for a
mission.
You scan during the trainingphase and you identify certain
weaknesses, like your lack offlexibility may predispose you
to hamstring injuries.
So we're going to put you on ahamstrings training program,
because what happens when you godown range and you pull a
hamstring right?
That's a.
That's a bad thing.
So now, all of a sudden, you'rea liability.
You have to be Aravac or, or,or, or whatever.
(20:31):
Or suck it up, or just suck itup, but you know, if you can
prevent that right beforehand,that's that's even more
important than dealing with itwhen you get back.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think there's, uh, there's
other things too that you knoworthopedic, muscular skeletal.
That's what orthopedic is right, right, exactly, um.
But let me ask you this youknow what are what studies exist
out there where, if I go outand from a concussion nothing
happened to me physically, butfrom a concussion of a bomb or
grenade or whatever a breach, Igot a TBI?
(21:11):
How does just that TBI eventhough I wasn't nothing
physically happened to me whenthat explosion happened, but how
does that TBI affect mymuscular skeletal system?
And I think I'll bet youthere's something there too.
I, I, I will bet my testicleson it, don't?
We're going to edit that out.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
But yeah, it's a good bet, Cause you're right, okay,
yes.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
I win.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
That's mine still.
I remember going.
I trained at Walt, the oldWalter Reed on 16th street, and
now that they have the newWalter Reed at Bethesda Naval
Hospital, I went and visited andlooked at the technologies that
they have and the way they weredealing with these you know
they have multiple amputeescoming back.
This is at the height ofAfghanistan and the TBIs.
(21:56):
They actually came up with aroom.
There's only two of them in theworld there's one in San
Antonio and there's one inBethesda and it's a large dome
and you get on a treadmillthere's actually two individual
treadmills and as you're walkingon the treadmill it's flashing
pictures and math equations andstuff up in the thing and it's
for these guys with tbi who aretrying to retrain their brain.
(22:16):
Yeah, both for you know, balanceand strength and coordination
as well as cognitively, so thetwo are interrelated one.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Oh geez, because you?
Because a friend of mine, helost some limbs and talking with
him after the fact, he stillthinks that his limbs are there.
His brain tells him his limbsare there Now.
(22:45):
Some people would think, there,now, that's, that's just a.
Some people would think, okay,that's a thought.
But no, if that's a thought,then that transfers to your
whole muscular skeletal systembecause your nerves are.
I mean it's all connected.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
It's called phantom pain.
It's been around.
Been around since.
We've known about it since thecivil war.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, you know phantom pain.
But I mean, how does that so?
If my brain's telling me that Istill have that limb, then I
guess my, and correct me if I'mwrong my muscles are still
acting as if I have that limb,at least tightening and right
the nerves are firing anyway,yeah yeah, and I, I mean, I holy
cow like this.
What you guys are doing on thisis awesome.
There's a group group that, umrecently we we had on here, uh,
(23:26):
they do.
It's what's called the 38challenge.
They're big on to uh TBI, ctewith the NFL players, um, and
they're doing a lot of stuffwith a brain type medicine, and
I, I, I think it'd beinteresting to get you both in
one room and talk about this,all the same stuff, and you know
(23:47):
, I'll, I'll bet something good,really good, comes out of that,
some kind of collaboration orsomething I don't know.
That'd be pretty cool, though,yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
It'd be interesting to see if we could determine,
through our screening process,the early stages of CTE.
Right, yeah, cause you getthese athletes 10, 15, you know
even less than that 5, 10 yearsinto the league.
Um, they probably all have alittle bit of yeah, especially
the linemen, because they'rethey're hitting their heads all
the time.
And is there something we candetermine in the screening that
points to that?
Speaker 1 (24:16):
and that would be a great study, because right now
they, um, what you know what?
Uh, uh, brant mccartney is you,he's kind of the leading dude
for this.
Um, he was.
He told us, you know, theydon't know that you have you
cannot be diagnosed with CTEuntil after you're dead.
At this point they have to,like, cut your head open and
look at your brain to see, isthat is that accurate?
(24:38):
Yeah, it is so.
So how revolutionizing wouldthat be if something with what
you guys are doing leads to thediagnosis of CTE without dying
Like holy shit man, that's likeright Before it gets to the end
stage, it becomes obvious, rightyeah?
That's huge.
(24:58):
That's huge.
See, I'm glad I put that bed onmy testicles and I won.
Damn it.
Yeah, um, okay.
So I should have asked you thisbefore, when you guys were
first going over through ourfirst introductions how long ago
did you start with CAO, like,when did you become the
(25:18):
president, or did you start withCAO as an executive?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah, we formed CAO about 13 years ago.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
In order to kind of deal with this switch between
private practice and employedmedicine.
There was a bunch of us inprivate practice who wanted to
stay that way, so we formed CAOby joining 24 different
independent orthopedic groupsinto one one group.
Right, we merged 24 groupstogether.
Um, that was quite a challengeand I'd been president since day
one.
(25:47):
Um and uh, you know we've donevery well.
We're up to 28, 29 groups nowWow, and we cover pretty much
all of the DMV Northern Virginia, maryland and DC and it's been
great.
So it's allowed us to stay inprivate practice, it's allowed
us to do some very neat thingsand allowed us to create
Medvanta, which basically wefunded ourselves.
(26:11):
We funded all this ourselves.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Because we are very much against taking any private
equity money because they ownyou and I don't want to be owned
.
So, uh, you know.
So I'm very proud of that andwhat we've, what we've done, and
uh, I think there's greatthings that come now what?
Speaker 1 (26:29):
so we were talking a little bit about what you know,
how you see the future, but isthere any other things that you
could talk about that you haveon your growth template of other
organizations or companies thatare kind of going in this realm
that may be on the line tostart soon?
Is there anything like that outthere there?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
are a lot of big orthopedic still private
practice orthopedic groupsaround the country who are doing
very similar things to whatwe're doing.
As far as CAO goes, I don'tknow of anybody who's doing what
we're doing with what Vant isdoing.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Who's not a PE-backed third-party vendor kind?
Of person right.
So we want to have all of ourpieces and parts homegrown and
fully owned by us, so you're notbeholden to anybody.
Because as soon as you startsigning contracts with third,
you have to have some thirdparty vendors.
Don't get me wrong.
But you know, if your majorpieces and parts are owned by
somebody else and you're justsigning a contract with them,
(27:23):
they can pull the rug out ontoyou at any time.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, and I mean, you can't be dependent on your
vision.
Like like if you're dependent onsomeone else and it's your
dream and your vision and you'rerunning with it and it takes
that one little link to destroythat.
Fuck that Exactly.
Nah, screw that.
Now, what about?
So you talked a little bitabout, we talked a little bit
about people losing limbs andstuff.
So how does like robotic limbsand stuff play into this?
(27:49):
Because I feel like that has aplace here.
I mean, if it's orthopedic andyou're attaching a robotic limb
to nerves and and this has beenalready been developed this
stuff exists.
How does this with med vanta?
How does this all roll intothat?
Speaker 2 (28:04):
I mean it's something we'd have to look at.
It's not something that's, atleast in our current practice,
prevalent enough for us toreally yeah develop a separate
line for it, but certainly if westart getting involved with the
military.
I mean, there's so manyentities out there right, I've
dealt with a few of them in mypractice but through the VA or
whatever, there's certainlyopportunity there.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
There is opportunity and I'll tell you what man.
The military is the correctplace in my opinion.
I'm biased to start that,because those dudes lost their
limbs for the country.
You know what I mean, and Ithink they deserve it.
If someone's going to go thatroute and do the exploration on
this and start something goodwith it, it needs to start with
(28:47):
the military veterans that havelost limbs in wars and the vast
majority of amputees in thiscountry, especially when you
talk about multiple amputees,are are are military veterans.
Yes, absolutely Yep, and youknow they 100% deserve every
piece of attention someone cangive to them to help them live a
better life, the rest of theirlife, Uh, after what they
sacrificed, uh, you know there'sa lot of, there's a lot to be
(29:11):
done in that space.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Oh, I mean I'm old, but when I started at Walter
Reed 91, yeah, 91, I was aresident at Walter Reed they
still had leather and wood fortheir prosthetics.
I mean literally there were nomicrochips, there were no
pneumatic hinges, there was noneof that.
That all came relativelyquickly.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
But I mean how far that stuff has come it's a whole
different conversation isabsolutely amazing it is and, um
, I don't think most public, uh,they don't even know, like they
don't even have an idea of howfar they've come.
There's some people that areworking that sec or, and you
know, there's a couple amputeesthat I know that um have been
(29:55):
part of testing and stuff likethat.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
So they, they have a very good idea what's going on
with it, but it's so faradvanced it's crazy, um, I mean
just in the five years I was atwalter reed um, I took care of a
guy who was a golden dite wholost both his legs in a jump in
a practice jump, he lost.
He was a below knee amputee onone side and above knee amputee
on the other.
Yeah, and because we had comeso far in just a few years, he
(30:19):
was the first double amputeeever to go back on active duty.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Wow, yeah, it's pretty cool you know, there was
a guy I worked with um he he wasa he was a r, lost his leg, got
a prosthetic, went back andqualified for the Rangers again,
was a team leader and thenwrote books.
We actually talked about thiswith the 38 Challenge guys,
(30:45):
wrote books, went on to doamazing.
He was the epitome of who anAmerican hero is.
I mean, like this dude overcameevery obstacle he could ever
think of, went back out and didit again and I, you know, not
too long ago he committedsuicide.
I think it was two years ago.
But you know then, if, if thething is, the whole reason why I
bring that up is because a lotof people, when people don't
(31:08):
realize, think about losing alimb.
Okay, really, think about this.
How much your life changes.
Like, really, people reallyneed to try to understand this.
It is not something that ohyeah, you know, I lost my arm,
I'll be fine.
Your entire life changes.
Everything, your legsespecially.
(31:28):
Everything that you do changes,not to mention the pain that
you're going to have the rest ofyour life.
And to lose sight of that andto not think about why people
commit suicide.
I can't even imagine what thoseguys deal with, especially
being this hero that I'm talkingabout.
(31:51):
Like the guy was a stud man.
It was just someone you look atand be like man.
I want to be that guy, um.
But anyway, a little bit offtopic on that Um, but still
important to talk about, um.
So, uh, I'm going to go back toyour minx.
Can you do a little data checkfor me?
Can you look up Dr Nick Grassoand the reason why I want you to
(32:13):
?
So he, he won the best doctorin Baltimore award or something
like that.
I don't know what it's called,but for like multiple years, and
I just want to be factuallycorrect because I think it was
like 1996, 97.
I was basically every year,except for 2022 because Fauci
took that, cause he's an asswife.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Now there's a sorry, I won at that.
Baltimore Magazine does a thingevery year Best Docs and it
pulls a bunch of people and it'sa peer-reviewed thing.
Right, the docs vote for otherdocs.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Look, man, that's the best award to get if it's a
peer-review award.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yeah, it is.
It's awesome.
It's amazing.
There are a large number of CAOdocs who make best of Baltimore
or best of DC, so I Iinformally I'm sorry to call you
dude, but that's just mylanguage.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
But listen.
So I'm a big fan of peerreviews because you know, in the
military and stuff that I wasdoing there, your peer
evaluations are huge.
If you are winning an awardfrom your peers and something
like that, that's ginormous.
It's not some asshole that'svoting that knows nothing about
what you're doing, it's yourpeers that are doing the exact
(33:21):
same thing.
They're saying now that dude'sthe best dude and that guy needs
it.
You know what I mean.
Like that's huge man.
That is ginormous.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
That's ginormous.
I think we had 30-somethingdocs in CAO who voted best of
Baltimore or best of DC.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Yes, that was awesome .
Okay, so you just pulled uphere.
Yeah, yeah, 2014, 2016, 2020,2021, 2022.
And I'm just going to remindanyone that's listening or
eventually watching this onYouTube Baltimore Magazine that
kind of includes some of thosebig name hospitals there.
(33:56):
What's the big one there?
Hopkins Hopkins, johns Hopkinshey, look, I've had a couple
tequilas.
I'm allowed to forget stuff.
So, okay, we're on the.
I have to ask you, how has thebridge affected you?
We just talked about Baltimore,so I need to go into this a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
It hasn't affected me at all, really, because I live
in Howard County.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Ah, that's right.
Okay, so you're on the otherside, yeah, other side.
And I'm sure people who travelthe Beltway every day, probably
on the western side a lot oftraffic is getting diverted that
(34:41):
way.
But yeah, other than that Ihaven't really noticed anything.
Man, like when I saw that, it'slike holy cow man, like that
thing is the key bridge.
Geez man, that's pretty major.
Uh.
Um, there were some otherthings in baltimore that I was
gonna that.
So carrie and I, the minx and Icall her minx on the podcast we
lived outside of Baltimore andthere was a lot of things we
loved about Baltimore.
I mean, there's a lot of thingswe did not like about Baltimore
.
Things went south there for alittle bit, but the big thing is
(35:04):
crime.
Like I'm so pissed off anddisgusted about crime and
corruption and we had a policeofficer that lived right next
door to us Great dude, prettysure that guy was pretty damn
corrupt too.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Pretty sure.
No, it's very sad it is.
It's a great city.
There's history there.
Yeah, there's great stuff to godo up there.
I love going to the ball gamesyou know Ravens and the Orioles,
Great restaurants, but my wifewon't even go in.
She won't go to Baltimoreanymore.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
I don't allow her to drive through.
And the thing is, it's becauseI feel like you cannot protect
yourself if you needed to.
I could be wrong about that,it's just how I feel.
But it's a beautiful city.
It's a beautiful city andthere's so much history there,
(35:56):
the restaurants, and it's ashame that some people kind of
had to go down the drain.
But our son was born inBaltimore Harbor Hospital Is
that what it's called?
Right?
Yeah, I mean it was a prettynice hospital there.
It was right on the water there.
It was pretty cool.
But I almost got mugged drivinghome after he was born and
(36:17):
trying to help someone out.
You know, the guys came out ofthe woods, I got on my truck and
they thought they were going tojump me and I was like, don't
do it.
And they didn't and I drove off.
But it's like you know why?
Why does it have to be likethat there?
(36:37):
Why, on, man jeez?
But anyways, I digress fromthat.
We're gonna go back to thetopic.
Do you guys have any questions?
For not the press, nothing, oh,come on.
Come on, there's something,anything anything.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
So what'd you do when you were in the marines?
Speaker 1 (36:48):
oh, what I do?
Oh, man, I was.
I enlisted to be a cook.
I did, yeah, I was going to bea cook.
And then I'm pretty sure they Ihad a mistake on my ASVAB test
(37:09):
and they were like no, this dudecannot be a cook.
They put me in some kind ofintel thing.
And then, when I was in Aschool, I met a radio recon guy.
He was my platoon sergeant andI was like that's what I want to
do right there and that's whatI did my entire career.
You know, I went to radio recon.
I still live and breathe tothis day.
(37:29):
In fact, two nights ago theradio recon brothers came over
and we're sitting around thistable bullshit and, um, you know
, did Mars sock, did, uh, youknow the debt.
One thing, and which I?
You know I didn't really evenbelong there.
I should.
I didn't have the maturity togo to that level of a unit, um,
but uh, you know, it was I.
That's where we met, you know,she.
(37:51):
I'm not going to tell the storyof that, but we met as Marines.
I ended up getting out as agunny and then continuing doing
the same stuff, but for otherpeople.
But great fate was awesome wasawesome If I would have been a
(38:13):
cook in the Marine Corps.
Holy fuck, I would have.
Probably, I have no idea Iwould have got out after four
years.
I would have been in jail.
I'd have no idea.
I probably would have been.
I would have got out because ofa dishonorable discharge from
doing lines of coke off astripper's ass or something,
because I would have not want tohave been a cook.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
I'm just saying you don't strike me as a cook.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Well, the funny thing is, I did go to culinary school
before the Marine Corps, andthat's why I was like, yeah,
screw cook, let's go.
But I don't do that.
I mean, I like to cook as ahobby now, but working in the
kitchen no, not for me.
But working in the kitchen no,not for me.
(38:57):
Yeah, and so where were youstationed at when you were in
the Army?
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Oh my goodness, Alabama, texas, alabama,
bethesda, georgia, walter Reed,korea, fort Meade.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Fort Knox when you were in Georgia were you at
Benning or whatever?
Speaker 2 (39:14):
No, I was at Hunter Army Airfield, which is part of
the Fort Stewart, but I was aflight surgeon at the time.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Yeah, Fort Stewart.
Yep, so in our not the radiorecon field, but another signals
intelligence field, fort Gordon, fort Gordon, we had a lot of
guys there.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Yeah, that's where the masters is.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Yeah, right now, actually, we might be able to
put up on the TV.
I'm just saying we don't needthat.
Put the masters up, babe.
Come on Seriously, you got this.
Put masters up, just make sureit's muted.
(39:55):
Yeah, I love watching.
I mean, I like the end of theMasters, I think probably around
5 o'clock.
It's going to be the best todaybecause that's going to be the
last part of it.
But I love that last part,especially if it's close.
It's going to be amazing andfrom what I hear, it's pretty
close right now.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Yeah, there were three guys within a shot of each
other, so hell, yeah, yeah, um.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Do you guys watch UFC at all?
Speaker 2 (40:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
I have.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
I have friends that are totally into it, but I don't
, yeah, oh man Like the.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Apparently the fights last night were amazing.
Um, we, you know, we've got acouple of friends that are big
into it and very involved withthe deep into the high ranks of
the UFC scene, and one of themis a trainer for one of the guys
that was fighting last night,so I have yet to call him.
(40:48):
I was going to say, if you guysare into UFC, we'll give him a
call right now and see what he'sdoing, see what's happening,
but he's a very colorful humanbeing though, so that might not
be a good idea.
He's a good friend though, man,so I actually do.
I've had a whole bunch ofquestions in the back of my head
(41:08):
as you were talking, but then Icompletely wrote a one-word
word thing and I'm like what didI mean by writing that?
I have no idea.
Oh man, son of a bitch.
Oh, you know, kendra and I weretalking.
This is not orthopedic.
(41:29):
I'm asking you this as amedical professional.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
How do?
Speaker 1 (41:39):
you feel about TRT?
I'm not sure I know what TRT is.
So, as a you know, I go and Iget my blood checked and they
tell me hey, look, dude, yourtestosterone level is a little
bit low.
We can supplement that andbring it back up to where it's
at, and then also it's going toeven out these other hormones
and chemicals in your body.
That's TRT.
Okay, how do you like?
(42:04):
How do you feel about cause?
I like I talked to a lot ofdifferent people that are
professionals within theindustry and they have different
opinions on it, and like I justI want to gather as much uh,
there, you know, there's factsand there's opinions, but from a
medical professional, youropinion actually means a lot.
It's pretty damn close to afact.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Well, I'll tell you from the orthopedic standpoint.
You want your testosterone tobe high, normal.
Right and for muscle mass, forbone strength, for a lot of
other reasons.
Right, the problem with thetestosterone is the range of
normal is so wide, okay, and Iwas at a meeting one time and
there was a real famousorthopedic surgeon up there.
(42:42):
I won't use his name, but hegoes hell.
No, I don't want to be lownormal he goes, I want to be
high normal right.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
What is?
Speaker 2 (42:47):
that.
Well, if there's a range, saythe range is from 900 to 1,800.
You don't want to be 950.
That's ridiculous.
And I don't know the exactranges because it's not what I
do.
But he was pretty adamant aboutbeing high normal.
You don't want to be extranormal.
You don't want to be like thesebodybuilders.
No, with juice, because there'sall kinds of downstream
(43:10):
problems from that.
Yeah, but if you're doing itwith a medical professional's
advice, then it's probably agood thing.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, the reason why I ask that is
because I started doing it.
I guess it was two yeah, itwasn't long ago.
But my thing was I'm not doingit until after I'm 45, and I
waited until I was after I was45, and then I did it and I
(43:41):
don't do whatever high normal is.
It's up to an average I don'tknow what normal to me is for
being active and it's beenlife-changing.
It has absolutely beenlife-changing.
But there's probably otherhealth things you've got to
(44:02):
think about with it, right.
So that's why I try to geteveryone's opinion on it, and
especially in the medical fieldand medical professionals.
But it's 100% beenlife-changing for not just
physical ability but everythingelse.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Yeah, but anything like that.
If you're doing it under amedical professional supervision
and they're testing what theyneed to test and everything, I
get worried about people who aretaking all this crazy stuff
that's available out there.
You just don't know what it'sgoing to do.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yeah, like with the program that I'm on, I have to
get tested or they won't.
Like, a physician has toprescribe anything to you, which
means if you don't go get yourblood work done, they're not
prescribing anything, and theneven then they may not like you
know, you have to, you have tomeet their standard and talk to
(44:48):
them about what your goals are,and it's a, it's an entire whole
health thing.
It's not just testosterone,it's everything involved with
that.
Um, but you know, again, I Ilike to get everyone's opinion
on that, man, because I, here, Iam telling all my buddies dude,
you got to do this, and I don'twant to be giving them bad
advice, although they've alldone it now and they're living
(45:10):
great too.
All their wives have thanked me.
Just just throw it out there.
Um, yeah, it's, but you knowanything in the medical field
that like.
So, when you like, as a doctor,you're an orthopedic doctor um,
when you get questions likethat, I like the fact that you
(45:34):
said I don't know anything aboutthat.
However, if you have a doctorthat's administering this for
you, then it's probably okay Tome.
That's the correct answer, man,because I see a lot of doctors
out there that have the titledoctor and it's not necessarily
their field field, but yetthey're throwing out their
(45:55):
expertise anyways, and that'sthe wrong way to do medicine, in
my opinion.
I'm not a medical expert and Iknow that yeah it's like don't.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
If you have got a medical problem, don't come to
me unless it's like a sprainedankle or something there you go
twist, twist it, twist your armor something.
Then come to me but yeah, I'vegot a wife and two daughters.
I get a lot of skin issues.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Oh jeez, good Lord.
I have to find thisproctologist, though.
What is it?
A GI doctor?
You have a GI doctor.
You're going to have to give methat I forgot about that.
I've told him twice now.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
I have a procedure coming up next month.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
I was like when you come to pick me up, you can meet
him.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yeah, but I asked you if he was cool and you said no,
I don't want to know.
I've got to have someone coolon here that's going to answer
questions that I have.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
You can butter him up .
Speaker 1 (46:53):
Sauce him up with some bourbon, Boom, yeah, Um,
well, I mean, I don't have awhole lot of other uh questions.
I think our conversation hasbeen pretty awesome, though, and
I would like to I would like tolink you up with, um, the, the
38 challenge guys.
Um, what was the?
The?
The nonprofit they werestarting, the Brain Lab yeah,
(47:15):
Brain Lab.
I think they're starting tomake a lot of movement and
there's a few NFL players doingit.
There's some pretty big-nameveterans that are out there in
the world that everybody knowsof, that are a part of it.
But it's pretty cool, man,because there is a there there,
(47:35):
I think.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Yeah, I mean.
This technology we're talkingabout is in its infancy right
this is like I said, five yearsago we couldn't have done this
and it's getting better andbetter and it's progressing very
quickly.
So at some point, yeah,someone's going to have to take
and look at that kind of thingand do a study to see if there's
a, like you said, is there athere there?
You know you take some patientsyou think are at high risk for
(47:57):
CTE and you do an analysis ofthem.
Take another group of patientswho have never had a brain
injury and do the same analysisof them and see if there's a
difference there.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
And that that might be predictive.
Well, so, so what else withthis technology?
Because you, like you just saidit's at the infancy, um, what
other?
What are some of the other ways?
Uh, that maybe people aren'treally even concerned.
Like, I think when, if I heardpeople talking about this, I
would immediately think you know, physician led, um, this has to
(48:28):
be something that you're justseeing if you're healthy,
whatever.
But there's, this goes waybeyond that, man.
There's, there's a lot of other, like a golf swing, Like how
could this not help your golfswing?
You know what I mean.
Like, eventually, they couldmove in that direction, or
something like that.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
You know, yeah, I mean you know swing analysis
baseball pitchers you know, all,all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
It's applicable to that.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
I mean, that stuff is there now today for the app for
the pro athletes.
Right, right you.
You go to a pga golfer and Iguarantee you his swing is
analyzed every every week, right, um?
but for the average guy he can'tafford to go get his swing
analyzed oh but if you got it onyour iphone and you just set it
up on a little stand and take aswing and it tells you, you
know what you're doing wrong.
I mean, that's this technology.
(49:15):
Like I said, the old motionanalysis labs were crazy,
expensive and huge.
Now it's going to be on youriPhone, so it's limitless.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Well, and some of these schools, like high schools
, like having something likethis at a high school level,
know, because, like you justsaid, you can't really afford
that unless you're a pro orsomething.
But what you're talking aboutis affordable for a small high
school, middle school even gradeschool.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
We're actually in in going to be rolling out very
soon with a major soccer leaguehere in northern virginia and
doing an analysis of all theirplayers and any family members
who want it.
But is that?
Speaker 1 (49:56):
the one you're involved with.
Yes, that's the same one.
We support them.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
Good and it's it's going to be, it's going to be a
learning process and hopefullythey're going to love it.
Hopefully we're going to seesome good results and you know
it's one.
It's one of those things thatit's not immediately measurable.
I mean, you put this stuff inplace and then you got to wait a
while and see are your injury,your injury rates, down or not?
And and?
That stuff will come, but thenit'll hopefully expand from
(50:19):
there.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
Well, I mean, uh, I was telling her um about, uh,
the, the, can I, can I say whoit is?
Speaker 3 (50:27):
I don't think it's been announced yet.
Okay, no.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
I won't, I won't then .
Um, we're, we're prettyinvolved with them too.
Our son goes to the academy andthen we're pretty good friends
with.
I actually used to work for theowner a while back.
He's a silent owner and then weknow them pretty well and the
program they have, man, oh myGod, is it glorious.
(50:51):
It is the complete familyprogram.
So if you can imagine going tothis property where there's a
barn, there's a bar, the kidsare running, there's a pro game
going on, that's one part of it.
(51:12):
But then all these kids aregrowing up with this program
until they become semi-pro andpro.
It's amazing and the passionlike that, the passion there, is
just so ridiculous it's soamazing.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
It's modeled after the european programs, you know
the english programs and yep andthat's exactly where uh, the
one, that's where he brings itfrom.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
We're trying to convince them.
There's an opportunity to bringa couple of lacrosse young
lacrosse team over and then growthat into the same thing that
they have with soccer.
But that's still kind of in theworkings and it wouldn't be
anything major yet.
But it's cool that you're doingthis with them because that's
(52:03):
going to kind of boil over toall the other soccer leagues and
soccer teams or academies, justlike this one.
It's going to blow over to themand it's going to come wide
range.
Everyone's following suit withwhat these guys are doing.
That program that they have isamazing, I'm telling you.
I never even imagined anythinglike that, the fact you can go
there with your family and justhave fun.
(52:23):
I had the opportunity to go takesome video of a couple of the
players.
They were actually part of alittle kids camp.
They were the coaches and whatI observed during those three
days is these players that arethe players who are coaching.
They're not just good soccerplayers, they're just good
(52:47):
humans.
And I watched, I observed someof the interactions they had
with some of these littleeight-year-olds and I was just
floored.
I was like holy shit, thatkid's 20 years old and he just
managed that like a superstar.
What that kid just did, andit's life lesson stuff.
There was this one kid.
(53:08):
They were doing this some kindof drill.
It was timed, they were teams,the ball kind of rolled off and
the best player by far on thefield was just walking along and
this kid that's always hustlingruns past him to go get the
ball.
He's like move your ass, littleeight-year-old Goes and grabs
the ball, bring it over.
(53:28):
And then one of the playershere, who's the coach for this
little league, he comes over andhe's like you will never cuss
like that on my field again andit kind of startled the kid but
then he got.
You know that's him talking uphere.
Then he gets down and kneels infront of him and he's like but
that was an amazing initiativeand you have the right frame of
(53:50):
mind.
A 20-year-old said that to aneight-year-old.
You know what I mean.
The life lesson there is justamazing and I witnessed that all
three days of that.
It was just over and overlittle things like that.
And when we go to the gameshere, the players there's three
or four of them that always comeup to where we sit and they
(54:13):
come over and shake everybody'shands.
Thank you for coming to ourgame, and that's it.
The program is just so damnamazing.
It's the fact that you guys aregetting in on that.
Um, that is a good program togrow with with this, because
they believe in it.
Speaker 3 (54:28):
Yeah, I just had a call with them last week and
talking through variouspossibilities that we have to
build out, like Medvanta plusthe CAO.
So, Medvanta for prevention andthen CAO for when they get
injured.
Now what?
And a big problem that theywere talking about is, right now
, as it stands, if they getinjured, they go somewhere else.
(54:49):
They have no idea what'shappening with that journey.
And if we can help along, keepthem in the loop, keep the
coaches in the loop on, okay.
Well, now they're in physicaltherapy.
This is how we're going to getthem back in the game and really
working alongside them thecoaches, the athletes, the
families.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
It's a huge opportunity for both of us and
the parents that are havingthese young kids grow with that
program all the way to that aregoing to see that too, and it's
going to be like.
This is going to be so awesomewhen you guys get to stroll on
like mainstream with them.
That's going to be so awesome,I'm excited about this.
It's cool.
It's cool and the person thather and I and the Minx know
(55:27):
mutually, they kind of linkedall of us up together.
You know again a good humanbeing who I'm really happy that
you guys are, have all linked intogether and you're doing great
things.
It's pretty awesome.
It's pretty awesome and youknow there's so many other
opportunities with.
(55:48):
I got to keep talking aboutthese guys because I cannot
stress how badass the program is.
So we have during the winterthey have what they call a
futsal program.
It's indoor, all the kids theygo and it's a league and there's
no games.
Really what it is is they justpractice doing foot drills with
(56:10):
a heavier soccer ball, practicedoing foot drills with a heavier
soccer ball, and the main ownerfor this program he's there
with these eight-year-oldscoaching Like the owner of the
entire, like that's his passionfor this.
He's there passionatelycoaching these little
eight-year-olds, nine-year-olds,some of them are five-year-olds
(56:30):
, because he believes in thisand the fact that he's bringing
in this type of that means hebelieves in what you are doing
too, and I'm telling you that'ssolid this dude is.
He is a pretty amazing person.
It's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (56:49):
Yeah, we're excited about it.
I think it's going to be a goodpartnership it will be, and you
had mentioned the high schools,so it's a very short leap from
this kind of thing into the highschool doing sports screenings.
My two girls both played highschool volleyball and softball
and they would get a pre-seasonphysical and that's it.
Speaker 3 (57:06):
There was no analysis there was no anything.
Speaker 1 (57:09):
This gives you another tool that could
hopefully help prevent injury.
I was going to give you a goodstory about a, a physical I had
to do once.
Should I give that story?
Oh, I mean I won't, I'll do itoff topic, but but I'll tell you
what it, what it involved, andI won't go through in the
details.
But I was doing a, so I had todo a.
(57:32):
Uh, I was supposed to go tofree fall and I had to go do my
free.
I've already done jump and allthat stuff but I had to do a
different free fall physical and, of course, uh, you know
there's parts of that that yougot to do that are not very
comfortable.
Speaker 2 (57:47):
Um, and that's the class one physical.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I won't, i'm'm not, I
don't even want to talk about oncamera or on a record that's.
This is a personal, a personalthing.
Only people, only specialpeople know about this.
Um, yeah, I mean, I, I thinkthat you know, with what you're
saying, with, like the highschool stuff, it's not a, it's
not a huge leap.
No, it's not a huge leap at all.
(58:12):
Man, like, once you guys getthis rolling, especially when it
comes to iphone, and it's not,and it's at all man, once you
guys get this rolling,especially when it comes to
iPhone and it's not just iPad,and if you could do it on iPhone
, then it's going to be a littlebit easier.
It should be easier to do onAndroid.
As far as an app, it's just thecamera capability, and I think
the Galaxy is 23 or whatever itis that camera capability is
(58:32):
just as good, if not better,than any iPhone capability right
now.
So that opportunity is going tobe there too.
That's going to be pretty cool.
Yeah, I appreciate you guyscoming.
Speaker 3 (58:46):
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
No, no, it was fun.
I mean, I hope, I think I'mpretty sure the guy that is the
other owner of the league thatyou guys are talking about is
going to come on the podcast andit would be cool to get you
guys on with him and we justtalk about soccer, because it
(59:09):
will go right into the medicalstuff.
Speaker 2 (59:12):
Yeah, especially after we get the program rolled
out.
Speaker 1 (59:14):
That's what I mean, like after that you know, I
think that'd be pretty cool.
You know, mix it up a littlebit and you know, get two
different professions that havelinked together and just
bullshit about how yourprofessions are intertwined and
you know what goodness that'screating.
But yeah, he had said he'sgoing to come on.
It's just, you know, findingthe time.
(59:35):
And then I think the time nowthat I know this is, let's wait
until you guys get this rolledout with them and then bring you
guys on together.
I think it'd be pretty bad-ass.
That'd be great, yeah.
So all right, well, we're goingto end this segment then.
And man man, awesomeconversation.
Yeah, thank you.
There wasn't a whole lot offuckery on this one, but that's
(59:56):
good, that's a good thing,that's not a bad thing.
Sometimes there's a little bittoo much fuckery going on.
So, all right, cool, that's awrap, all right.
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