We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dan below.
Dan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Have you ever had an amazing boss, mentor or leader leading you? Can you us a story or anecdote that helps illustrate why this person was such a great leader and the impact they had on you or their team?
The best boss that I have ever had is also my current boss and is now the person I have sworn to be the last person that I will ever work for. Her name is Brittney Mims and she owns the clinic that I work in, Mims Method PT. She started the business with just herself and slowly grew it over time. Eventually I became her first ever full time employee and am now the clinic director overseeing 10 employees and counting. Brittney is a fearless and relentless leader that also finds a way to be incredibly calm and understanding in even the most hectic of environments. She is an inspiration not only to me but to other people in the industry and I consider it an honor to be able to work with her.
Dan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My name is Dan Ginader. I am a Doctor of Physical Therapy who is currently practicing at Mims Method PT in the heart of New York City. The journey to writing this book is kind of a wild ride, but I believe it is the best way to continue the work that I have been doing and help the most people possible.
In May of 2020 I was practicing as the physical therapist inside the State Government Center of Indiana. I had been recruited to work for a company called Tx: Team that specialized in opening private PT clinics inside large corporate offices. I started in December of 2020 and within my first 2 weeks I was booked SOLID. I was convinced that this was the future of physical therapy. Going to where the people are, being in network with their insurances, and offering 1:1 care at an affordable price. It couldn’t have been going better.
Then, as some of you may remember, the world ended. In March of 2020 I went from being booked solid to all of a sudden having absolutely nobody on my schedule. Being a PT in an office building went from being the best job in the world, to basically no job at all.
By May of 2020 I hadn’t treated a patient in a couple of months and I had also developed a crippling TikTok addiction. One week, I kid you not, I spent 42 hours on the app just consuming videos. After having a come to Jesus talk with myself, I decided that I either needed to delete the app and see a therapist or find a way to make it a productive use of time.
And so, I posted my first TikTok under the handle @dr.dan_dpt. After a few weeks I went viral for the first time and the rest is history. By posting simple stretches and exercises for common aches and pains I grew to well over a million followers across all social platforms.
And as I’ve posted and continued to grow, one thing never stopped surprising me. Every single week, without fail, I get comments and messages telling me how a video that I made helped someone get out of pain. To me, as a PT, these videos are nothing but very simple pieces of advice and education that is basic enough to apply to large groups of people. And yet, this very simple information is all people need to really make a difference in their life.
As I’ve grown both as a PT and as an educator, I have continued to look for more ways to spread this simple information to help people relieve the pain that they have grown accustomed to living with.
Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?
When I was in my first job as a physical therapist I was seeing up to 4 people an hour and more than 20 people in a day. It was unsustainable both for myself and the patients who weren’t receiving the proper care. I was so unhappy that I was applying to new jobs OUTSIDE of the profession, I didn’t think there was any way to be a PT. Right when I was about to leave I got recruited to a job that only treated one patient per hour. It reinvigorated my love for the profession and showed me how I could stay with this as a career option. Then once the social media side of things took off, I can no longer imagine being anything other than a physical therapist.
Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?
Soft skills are the key to being a great physical therapist. You could know every exercise ever invented and always be up to date on the latest and greatest forms of manual therapy but if you can’t connect with your patients, you won’t be successful. In order to help someone heal you need to be able to listen to them and meet them where they are at. I’m a firm believer that if you let a patient talk long enough then they will tell you exactly what is wrong with you. Then it’s just up to your skills and professional knowledge to connect the dots.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @dr.dan_dpt
- Youtube: @dr.danDPT