Why PT Needs Boldness, Not Burnout | Patrick Graham

0:00 You're listening to the P.T. Pinecast, where smart people in healthcare come to make noise. Here's your host, Jimmy McKay. All right, the ingredients of a good talk or a good session or a good meeting, I would say most likely, well, you've got to have chocolate, you've got to have marshmallows, you've And you can't forget Graham. Graham crackers. Graham crackers. I went to the supermarket the other day just for you, just for this. Oh, someone's getting phone calls here. Patrick Graham here. What year is this? Nineteen. This is nineteen. Wow.

0:40 Good for you. Is it still weird coming to a meeting with literally your name on it? Because now it's not even like I bet you ninety percent of people in this room. No, maybe not this room, but most people who hear about the Graham sessions, they don't know like you're still at the Graham sessions. You're still there. Well, yeah, it's it's very humbling. Yeah. Yeah. So let's go back before we go forward. I was there ten years ago. when we did the founders interview, it was in Florida. Correct. And we talked about where things had started and where they had gone. And each year, or I imagine there are some cycles where a topic comes up and it stays around for a couple of years and maybe it's solved or we move on.

1:20 But what are the things that stay the same, even nineteen years into doing the Graham sessions? You know, I think the big thing that doesn't change is the broadness of ideas and the broadness of thoughts. And I think the more we focus on those, the more we're moving our profession forward. And that was the whole genesis of the whole idea is We want to get these ideas. We want to flush them out. We want to debate them. And then from there, people can take them back. Do something with them. Do something with them. Exactly. First rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club. Second rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club.

2:01 What's the first rule of Graham Sessions? Everything's confidential. Yeah. You can talk about ideas but not attach them to people. Correct. This way people aren't. afraid apprehensive to say something because they might have repercussions everything's off the record yeah but we want the ideas to leave the room absolutely but we can just put a not it's said by anonymous or we'll leave that part out all right so i've been asking everybody today been doing a bunch of live uh streams ten minutes quick fast to the point what's something on the docket this year either you know we're at three o'clock in the afternoon something that's already been covered or we're going to cover this afternoon that you're like, yeah, I want to, I'm excited to hear about this.

2:44 This is a topic that you're sitting there, you know, all right, let's dig in. What's exciting you? So I love the panel that related to some of the lessons with their learning from dentistry as well as some of the network opportunities that out of the box thinking that occurred with the model they discussed and how they've executed it. beautiful yeah good artists borrow great artists steal Picasso said that which is hey listen if we keep trying to solve the problem with what we've got in the room we're gonna run out of solutions if it doesn't work let's look outside so look at a dentistry looking at different options and that's a great start how about something that's not on the docket that you're like man where where's this I'm met where's this You know, I think we discussed a little bit about education and we just heard a great what I believe speech.

3:40 But we can't tell by who what he said. No, I know. I know. I'm just kidding. But he brought up the point of someone in our profession who challenged the status quo, created something different that's changing waves. That excites me, to have people in a room Okay, they're doing this, they're doing this. How could we do that? What do I do? Correct. How do I do that? What's my version of that? Yeah, it's exciting. What needs to be on three hundred and sixty five days from now? What what would you put on the docket? You've you've prepared this meeting a bunch of times. That can't be easy, right?

4:21 Because you can't have everything covered. No. But what would you put on the on the horizon for the twentieth anniversary? Wow. You know, I think boldness. Okay. What does that mean? So we've heard a bunch today, but what energizes me about this meeting is the freshness ideas, the boldness of our colleagues and taking that out into the real world to see where we're going to go and what we can do. We can wallow in our pity, how poorly we're reimbursed, We have the best opportunity we've ever had because people know who a physical therapist is and the highest demand out there.

5:07 What are we going to spend our effort and our time on? And diamonds are formed under pressure. That's the theme this time. You've been part of putting these together, but in the beginning and now, how did you figure out who to put in the room? What was the... I imagine if a chef is making a soup or whatever, you're like, okay, it's got to have a little bit of this and a little bit of that, not too much this and not enough that. How did you figure out what was a good mix? It wasn't me. Steve Anderson has led this thing for nineteen years and now Keaton's doing a beautiful job. The first year we literally, we kind of invited, we thought were thought leaders in the profession and a bunch of them came and it was productive.

5:51 Second year, it started getting a little stale and Steve really started putting some effort and planning into. kind of an agenda and specific topics and got a committee structure. He just really elevated it. Yeah. I mean, he's, he's, it's incredible what he did. And that to me has been what has kept us alive. Yeah. Looking back, did, did it achieve its goal each year? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if you remember last year, but they kind of recapped some ton of things that have happened in our profession and, And a lot of the ideas were fleshed out and derived out of the Graham sessions.

6:36 And that was the whole desire of this crazy idea. All right. Well, Keaton will be sixty and twenty more year. I don't know. But in twenty years, what do you hope? How do you hope things have progressed? What would you what would your hope be for the next twenty being next year's twentieth anniversary? I hope that our younger generation. is as bold and as passionate as we are. And I really believe they are. Um, I think the new therapists coming out have more confidence and, uh, tools at their disposal than any we've ever had in our profession and their ideas and technology and the use of technology.

7:18 I mean, I can't even fathom it. I'm sixty and I look at where we've come and I think it's just going to get exponentially faster. Yeah, I don't disagree. And it's the people who lean into them or at least curious about those tools. Yeah. You don't do a master on day one, but pretend it doesn't exist. That's how you get run over. No, I do. I think a lot of. what some people would term as traditional, that's supposedly what got us here, will be obsolete. Yeah. It's crazy how fast these things are going. Yeah. I mean, look at you, man.

7:59 You're the first guy I've ever known in our profession with your talent. And I remember when you first came and I was like, This is a great idea. Weird, right? My mom was very confused, too. And you're fantastic. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I mean, you really are. Thank you. I appreciate that. I look at it as I get to sit next to super smart people and either ask great questions and try to find the answer out there or a person has solved a problem. Great. Reframe that problem. Tell me how you solved it. And we send it out there. You know, I brought something up earlier. We were talking about primary care. That's great. It was a great victory specifically in Utah, but there's different ways to access PT as primary care.

8:40 And my push, of course, I wanted to be spicy, which was, this is a great idea. Don't screw it up. Well, how are you going to screw it up? And I made everybody look outside the windows here on the seventh floor of APTA. And I said, all those people out there have no idea what this means. They have no idea how it could help them. And if we fail there, it doesn't matter how great our services are. It doesn't matter how great our skills are. We've got to make sure we don't fumble that. Now, here's the best part. You don't do it yourself. There are professionals who can help you do that. But don't try to do it yourself if you can't actually execute it Cause I wouldn't want you to fail there and be confused five years from now. We had primary care. What happened? You'd failed this one simple thing.

9:23 Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree. We've got another talk going on soon, but I wanted to make sure we have a, we have a tradition on the show. Every episode we do something called the parting shot. This is the parting shot. One last mic drop moment. No pressure. Just your legacy on the line. No pressure whatsoever, Patrick, just your entire legacy. Now, what's just an idea, a concept, words of hope for the future, something you want to leave with the audience as we wrap up and go back inside? You know, my whole career has been on not being afraid to ask the questions. And I would just encourage people, ask the question. Yeah, ask the question. I just referenced Terry Gross is a NPR host, and she's done more than twenty thousand interviews over her career.

10:09 And she wrote a book and the title of the book I thought was great. All I did was ask. All I did was ask. Right. And questions can be powerful because hopefully eventually if you ask enough of them. uh, they lead to answers. Absolutely. And that's what I think grand sessions is. So it's a little, little pressure cooker, right? Bring them in, get a little fun. Uh, we've got a couple more sessions going on as we live stream, but we know where the real conversations are going to happen tonight. About five thirty. Yep. When we walked up there, that's how do we get more of that and facilitate it? Because that's where the real conversations and, The back of the napkin. The reason they say it's the back of the napkin idea is because napkins are over a drink or a meal or a cup of coffee. So looking forward to sharing some more ideas after the agenda is over this evening.

10:52 Awesome. Patrick, appreciate the time, man. Yeah, thanks. That's it for this one, but we're just getting warmed up. Smash follow, send it to a friend, or crank up the next episode. Want to go deeper? Hit us at pgpiecast.com or find us on YouTube and socials at pgpiecast. And legally, none of this was advice. It's for entertainment purposes only. Bullshit! See, Keith? We read the script. Happy now?