What This Future Physical Therapist Learned From TrainSMART

"So, my three reasons you should intern to TrainSMART are, number one, if you're a full time student, they will pay for your certified functional strength coaching certificate. Which is very good thing for your resume or just the experience of having it. You can be able to go and get a job with a trainer at a gym, whatever you'd like get a little more experience. You also get to expose to some very valuable and vast amounts of knowledge. You'll get this through your workshops, and just to exposure from the TranSMART team, and how much knowledge they have, throughout the years throughout all their workshops throughout all their trainings. You also get to create meaningful and lifelong connections with the classmates, you'll have there. The team at TranSMART, if you need recommendations, they'll give you recommendations. Just a very, very good place to make connections with people. Even guest speakers, you'll make connections with guest speakers, some of the best PTs in Buffalo.

And then my five, the five most important things that I have learned at TrainSMART. Number one would have to be, they don't teach you this in school or in college. You learned about Stuart McGill's teaching how he fixes low back pain, his big three, and you get to implement it and see how it works with actual clients that you're training. Speaking of clients, I would say the second most important thing I learned was, hands on experience. Hands down, one of the best ways for me, personally, to learn is hands on experience. You get to work with clients, you get to train clients, get to learn what works, what cues work, what cues don't work. And then you also get to learn about that person, make a connection with them. And that was very insightful to me. Because connections are important for the outcomes of the patient. I would say the third most important thing I learned was actually from a recent workshop. And what we did is that even though you learn so much in DPT school, that is really just a foundation for you to build on. If you want to be a great PT, you have to go out and continue education, further your education by yourself and get, maybe not specialize but become a jack of all trades. Learn the most you can about all of the specific systems like if you want to be ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, neurological, try and learn it all, because the body is always intertwined. And by knowing the most amount about all the systems, then you can be the best become the best PT you can be. And then something Joe really emphasized, Joe Fox really emphasized, is that even if you are the best PT, you're the, you have the most knowledge, you get the best outcomes, you treat your patients the best. Even though you are the best, that doesn't translate to being the best entrepreneur. If you want to own your own clinic someday, like I do, then you have to go out and pursue an education in business. Learn from someone, take courses, whatever it may be, but you need to learn about business to be able to successfully run your own business.

And then I got to learn a few philosophies. And I would say the main philosophies I learned were from one of my favorite guest speakers, Dr. Michael Geraci. And there are a few quotes actually fantastic quotes. He says, "Be confident about what you know, but not cocky. Realize you don't know it all. You will never know it all. And for this reason, you should be a lifelong learner. Always be learning." And then, "Outcome over income." I think that's a really, really good one. Because if you're running your own business, it becomes you get a lot of different problems you, you sometimes need to pay the payrolls of your employees, but you don't want to sacrifice your standards, your outcomes of patients and how they get better to make more money. I think you should always care for your patient first, and give them your best."