Bienvenido
Mi Historia
My family brought me to physical therapy before I even really realized it. Pushing me to participate in sports and finding myself in the trainer’s room after practice. My Dad has had his share of surgeries - hip & knee replacements - and has always bounced back well enough to coach baseball, go hiking, and shoot hoops at Rowland Park. My godfather hooked me up with my first part-time job making cast moldings for the kids he would treat in his home office connected to his house.
My godfather told me about the PT’s he worked closely with and they seemed like angels to be able to help kids with disabilities. And it always seemed like a blink of an eye when my Dad would go from hospital bed to hiking again after a few rounds of therapy. I fell in love with the grind of rehab working with our school trainer Cindy and getting back to my various teams in competition. My passions at the time were simple: staying active, working towards successful returns to competition, and making connections with people. Being confined to a desk didn’t cut it for me. It was at SUNY Buffalo where I met some instrumental people who made PT a realistic career choice.
In PT school I always thought owning my own business seemed cool and was something I would daydream about from time to time. And like most dreams it always seemed out of grasp, solely for the older therapist, and never really manifested into anything. But once I started working, professional occasional reminders would come up: “Hey why is this insurance cutting this person off from therapy, don’t they know they are suffering from X - problem?”. Or “Sorry person X, we can’t help you for your knee because the prescription only says I can treat your hip/back”.
“My passions at the time were simple: staying active, working towards successful returns to competition, and making connections with people. Being confined to a desk didn’t cut it for me.”
It’s been frustrating on so many levels for me, being handcuffed by people I’ve never met, who often times are not as educated on the patients I treat, and make me climb through hoops to beg (often unsuccessfully) for more therapy for the people that need it. But what really bothers more, is the people who it truly affects. Those are the people who come for my help because they care about their bodies. Those who are faithful to the process of rehabilitation and want to get better. Those who want to get off pain medications they use simply to get by in their day for injuries that have other solutions. For these people is why I’m doing continuing education to complete my fellowship in orthopedic manual physical therapy.
I have worked in over a dozen of some combination of centers, gyms, hospitals, and clinics in my career and a few things really stand out.
My best work comes when I have individualized time with my patients.
The less people I see in the day, the faster my patients get better.
The more 1-on-1 care I provide, the quicker people get off pain medications for their injuries.
My patients are the happiest when I can spend time guiding them, working hands on, and getting to know them beyond what is on my computer screen.
So after so many years of professional practice I am ready to create that exact environment for my patients and myself. At the end of the day, I want to continue doing what I set out to do when I went to school and that is to get you all better with what I know and do. I love this job. I love when you get better and do things you couldn’t before. I love when you tell me you don’t need pain medications any more.
“I want to help you through those tough, recurring, nagging injuries so that you get back to what you love.”
I don’t want insurance companies telling you that you have to walk 10 miles up hill through the snow both ways to the doctors office, wait 2 hours to see them, and come to me to find out you can only been seen for one body part. I joke but that’s the reality of our healthcare system and enough is enough. Let’s cut to the chase, get you what you need when you need it, and move on with our day. Jay West Physical Therapy is my attempt to make this a reality for you and me, changing the paradigm of what healthcare can be in this country and keeping you first, always.
Because what are the alternatives? Falling into the vicious cycle of taking prescription pain medications and pill popping without knowing when to stop? Jumping to surgery as a first resort to all of your injuries only to realize afterwards that you had other options? Falling into the cracks of a healthcare system that doesn’t always have your best interest in mind? YA BASTA!
I’m not going through more training to put another degree on the wall at my mom’s house. Yes my own personal goal is to have some of the best hands in the game but it is more than that. I want to educate you that you do have options when taking care of your body. I want to help you handle your own business so that you don’t keep hurting yourself. I want to help you through those tough, recurring, nagging injuries so that you get back to what you love. And if I can do those things for each one of my patients, then the paradigm will shift. People will begin to look at themselves the way I do - holistically -and I believe things will start to change for the better.
