Health
Ep 86 Spine Health & Social Media 101: 5 Habits to Ditch Today with Dr. Betsy Grunch
In Episode 86 of the Save Yourself podcast, Dr. Betsy Grunch, a board-certified neurosurgeon, shares her insights on spine health and the impact of social media on mental well-being. She discusses fiv...
Ep 86 Spine Health & Social Media 101: 5 Habits to Ditch Today with Dr. Betsy Grunch
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Interactive Transcript
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I'm only as good as my last post.
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If I have a really bad post,
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like meaning that it didn't perform well or didn't do well
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or whatever, I'm just like, oh God, maybe I lost it.
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Maybe I don't know what people are interested in anymore.
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And so it's like constantly you're trying to figure out
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the right kind of recipe for it to land.
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And I do think that's a big struggle
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that most people don't talk about.
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I agree with that wholeheartedly.
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Like, I'll have days, you know,
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where I don't have good viewable days or whatever.
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And I think I've lost it.
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Yeah.
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It's like, you know, I mean,
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you're fighting against the algorithm most times.
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It's not even has anything to do with you.
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But we're always in this adopamine rush when you do well.
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You always want that.
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You don't always get it.
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And it's the same thing in life, right?
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So like, everything's not always unicorns and fairy dust.
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Like, there's many times.
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Yes.
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And there's good times.
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And so to tell yourself that is something
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we don't always talk about, but it's so true.
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Dr. Betsy Crunch is a board certified neurosurgeon
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who attended the Medical College of Georgia and Augusta.
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She completed her residency at Duke University
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where she also earned the Synthesis spine fellowship
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from 2010 to 2011.
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She's honored as a woman marking a mark in 2023
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and has been listed top doctor for several years.
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Her main interests are minimally invasive spine techniques
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and advancing the fields of neuro trauma.
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Additionally, Dr. Crunch is known online at Lady SpineDoc
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where she enjoys demystifying the subject of neurosurgery
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while also showing her audience how she balances work
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and life as a mother, wife, and friend.
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Her thriving social media platform seeks to empower
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the general public with critical medical knowledge
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to inspire current and future healthcare professionals
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and to add a bit of positivity and humor to your day.
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Dr. Betsy Crunch, thank you so much
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for being on the Save Yourself podcast.
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Thanks for having me.
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It's all right.
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I'm going to just disclose at the very beginning
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that I'm battling a little bit of Lair and Jyda.
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So, if I'm hearing someone like myself.
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Is it from your screaming?
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Is it because you're a screaming fan this weekend?
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I wish I could say yes, I was still screaming fan,
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but no, I think I have some kind of,
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my voice is decided like every other month
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that's going to go out.
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So.
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Okay, so I know that people might know you
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as Lady SpineDoc from social media.
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You have an amazing social media platform.
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You're also a mom and neurosurgeon and entrepreneur.
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One of the things I wanted to ask you off the bat
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because I think everybody wants to know from you.
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What are like the top three or five things
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that you wish people didn't do
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because you see it causing trauma so often?
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Oh, right off the bat.
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Right off the bat.
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Yeah, so my field of expertise is spine.
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So I would say, you know,
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I see a lot of injuries to people for unnecessarily lifting things,
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you know, improperly like making sure you're bending
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with your knees and keeping your spine straight
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and not lifting anything that's too heavy for you.
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I will also say particularly in terms of women's health,
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I think that women, especially in a postpartum
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phase ignore our core strength and pelvic floor
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or maybe not necessarily ignore
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but don't properly retrain that postpartum.
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And I really feel like that should be a part of our postpartum care
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is really focusing on women working on restricting their core,
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their glutes, their pelvic floor,
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because that is so, so important for long term spine health.
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So I'll say that is number two.
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Number three, optimize ergonomics.
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So what I mean by that is like keeping, like,
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if you're working in a computer,
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keeping your computer screen straight in front of you,
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so you're not looking down all the time whenever you're on your phone,
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we talk about tech snack all the time,
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you know, trying to keep your head and spine in neutral position.
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I'm going to give you five tips.
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So number four,
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would be hydrate and keep a healthy weight.
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So making, and I need to take my own advice about the hydration,
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that most of our deaths in our spine are 80% water.
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So keeping your body hydrated will keep your spine more fluid and more mobile.
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And I think it's, you know, just a great tip.
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And then of course weight is really important to prevent unnecessary strain
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to our back and to our spine.
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And the last thing is that if you use nicotine or vape or anything like that,
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try to quit because I think that is something that a lot of people just don't realize
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is so bad for our spine.
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We always talk about it for cardiac health,
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pulmonary health,
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but in terms of spine health,
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nicotine is so, so bad for our spine.
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So I don't think most people know the link between nicotine,
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vape being smoking and spine health.
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What is the link?
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It's, it has to do with nicotine as a vasoconstrictor.
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So, you know, it can decrease the way our body heals itself,
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our spine heals itself.
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So let's say you go,
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you do a lot of lifting one day, pick up something, enter your back.
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Your body's way of self healing is to make blood flow go to an area
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and to regenerate and bring in nutrients, cytokines, etc.
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inflammatory stuff to that area to repair itself.
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So our spine and atlas, particularly our deaths are, are poorly vascularized.
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So they have bad blood flow.
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So you take something that doesn't have great blood flow,
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and then you, you take a vasoconstrictor
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and you're significantly reducing your body's ability to auto heal.
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And people that use nicotine have premature degenerative
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dysdysses, pain, and their spine,
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and that kind of progresses slowly over time.
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And we don't focus a lot on that.
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And then if you need spine surgery for whatever reason,
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a lot of times in spine surgery,
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we do fusing surgery where we try to make,
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we remove the desk and make two bones grow together.
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If you use nicotine products and you're having a spinal fusion,
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you're a 50% chance of not healing from that surgery.
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So those are just insane statistics.
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Wow. I don't think most people know that.
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So thank you for sharing that.
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Is that, does that go to vaping too?
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Because I know vaping has become so popular for people.
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Yeah. Any nicotine products,
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so cigarettes, dipping, vaping, gum, pouches,
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then all of that stuff.
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I think zen is becoming super popular too.
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And people just don't realize it.
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I often have these same conversations when my patient
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almost every single day that they never, you know,
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understood that link or didn't understand that risk.
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And I think we should talk about it more.
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Oh my gosh. I love this because I think, you know,
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nicotine products have gotten a little bit of steam,
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even in the wellness world.
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And of course, vaping is just everywhere.
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I have teens and you're always talking about, you know,
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be careful about that.
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It's like the new, it's a new drinking, I think, for the teens now.
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Yeah.
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So thank you for sharing that.
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So on the bending down, how do you feel about squats or like weighted squats,
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like barbell squats?
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And because I've heard, I mean, for me, I have a hard, hard time
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with that in general.
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And I've heard things about not doing those.
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And so I've stopped doing them.
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But what is the real deal?
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I think real deals are great.
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So they, but they have to be done correctly.
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So like doing squats and deadlifts and those things are great
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for strengthening your post here, your chain when they're done correctly,
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not too weighted and good form.
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Because we have to strengthen our post here, chain,
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our back part, our spinal muscles to keep our spine strong.
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But, you know, because of the way you can do it,
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it also can subject your body to injury.
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And so, you know, that's why you just have to make sure that they're done correctly.
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I do think they get a lot of heat.
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I do, I see a lot of injuries when people are squatting.
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Yes.
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But I often just think it's for people either with improper form or too much weight.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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That's very, very good.
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Because I think, you know, it's really important for women, especially to be doing lower body exercises,
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strengthening exercises, but doing it in a way that's really safe is something that is a hard thing.
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I think doing it with the trainer, at least in the beginning,
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and then learning the proper form is the right way to go.
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Okay.
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So I have read about your inspiring story.
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And I've, I think I've heard you say it at a conference.
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And so, love for you to share with everyone here a little bit about how you got into the field.
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I think everybody in medicine has some type of something that made you get interested in medicine.
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For me, it was a injury to my mom.
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She was a police officer injured in the line of duty and suffered a spinal cord injury.
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So she was quadriplegic after an auto accident.
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And that really interested me because I was very confused as to how someone could suffer a seemingly, you know, small injury,
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but never walk again.
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And so I wanted to learn more.
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I didn't think that that was possible.
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I wanted to fix it naively.
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So I started, you know, just kind of, and then I was really inspired by her journey and in that time of our life,
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where I was at that time where I was thinking about what I'd want to do.
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So seeing the nurses, seeing the therapists, you know, working with her and us and other families and making a difference.
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And how much we relied on their expertise really was very transitional to me to want to explore healthcare as a profession and spine.
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And so I started shadowing her neurosurgeon when I was in high school.
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And I just really fell in love with taking care or learning about the injuries and taking care of patients with those types of injuries.
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So that's ultimately why I went into the field.
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That's so inspiring.
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So you were in high school when this happened before that.
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Did you know what you wanted to do or you were kind of exploring and when this happened, you kind of solidified it for you?
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I think like most young girls, you just really wanted to do what your mom wanted to do.
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So I wanted to be a police officer.
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I thought my mom was super cool.
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And I always saw her come home with her bulletproof vest on her gun belt and all this stuff and listen to her police radio.
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And I just saw that was so cool.
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And I wanted to do that.
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Then when she got hurt, I was like, oh, that's dangerous.
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Yeah, that could change.
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Is she happy and healthy now?
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She's told quadriplegic.
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She had a complete Asia A spinal cord injury in 1994 and it's 2000 and 25 and she's still like 30 something years post injury and is still as healthy as she can be, believe it or not.
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She's just an inspiring human and yeah, she's just a very, very strong person.
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I'm so inspired by her and her journey and thank you for sharing that.
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That's such a sad but also amazing story that you were able to kind of help her at that time and then help her now, probably, you know, with all the things that she needs to know.
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So, you know, I think a lot of people may not know you that you kind of have this like other side of you, the social media side of you.
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What kind of prompted you to even get into social media?
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Like, you're a great dancer.
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You're a good entertainer.
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Like, how did that even was that like something you always were into and then it just came out?
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Let's clear one thing up.
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I have an okay dancer.
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You're a great.
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I mean, okay, like the bars at low, but you're good.
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No, so I just, I don't know.
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So I had a lot of time on my hands and the one thing that you can do this dangerous to a type a personality is have too much time on your hands because you want to do something else.
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So I became just really like interested.
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I mean, I always use social media, but saw all the healthcare influencers in this space at that time kind of tried to fight misinformation and thought, well, there's nobody in my field that's doing that.
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So let me do that.
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So I, I just started talking to really my first video that went viral was about being a female in the field in a male dominated field.
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And it was just so interesting to see all the feedback that I got that I decided that I would, you know, kind of spend three months do it every single day.
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That's what I read about online that would make you successful as daily content.
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So I started doing daily content.
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And here we are.
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I love that.
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Has it become a much bigger part of your life now? I would assume so.
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Oh, my gosh.
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It's like consumes most aspects of most of my life really.
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How are you balancing it with?
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I know I have had my own struggle. So that's why I'm curious.
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How are you balancing it with?
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I mean, not only your practice, but also personal life and all of us, all the things.
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Do you have like a set schedule where it's like one day you do this?
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Yeah.
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Yeah, I have a schedule where I try to like keep myself on track for speaking on different things like making sure every week I talk on a long form video on.
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Education, et cetera.
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So I try to keep it as semi structured, but also real like, you know, that's not all of who I am.
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A lot of things have pulled in multitude of different directions.
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So for me, like my platform just grew for me being myself.
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And so I know there's a lot of other influencers that kind of have a niche or whatever only talk about X, Y and Z.
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But I just couldn't stick to being consistent that way.
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So I just made it more about my life and seem to resonate with people.
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So that's kind of what I do.
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Whatever I'm feeling in the moment, whatever topic is of interest to me, whether it be motherhood, health care, some type of news topic.
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I just, you know, find a way to integrate that into my content.
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I don't.
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I mean, I say that I don't let it consume me, but the reality of any content creator is that is always ever consuming.
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But it's given me so many unique opportunities that I never would have had.
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And I just try to keep it real and fun.
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So I love it.
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I feel the same way.
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Sometimes it is tough like when you're on vacation, for example, you know, because I do my own content.
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I think you do what your own content.
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So it's really hard.
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It's not like someone's just running your social media and you can just take a vacation and, you know, don't have to think about it.
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And the other thing I think is really tough for me.
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I don't know if this happens to you is like sometimes I feel like I'm only as good as my last post.
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I don't know if you've ever struggled with that.
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But like, for example, if I have a really bad post, like meaning that it didn't perform well or didn't do well or whatever, I'm just like, oh, God, like this is like not.
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Maybe I lost it.
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Maybe I don't know what people like are interested anymore.
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And so it's like constantly you're trying to figure out the right kind of recipe for it to land.
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And then I do think that's a big struggle that most people don't talk about.
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I agree with that wholeheartedly.
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Like, I'll have days, you know, where I don't have good.
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Viewable days or whatever.
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And I think I've lost it.
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Yeah.
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And it's like, you know, I mean, you're fighting against the algorithm most times.
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It's not even has anything to do with you.
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So I try to do that.
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But we're always in this like, I mean, I don't know.
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We're in this weird time where it's like a dopamine rush when you do well.
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You, you always want that.
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You don't always get it.
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And it's the same thing in life, right?
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So like, everything's not always unicorns and fairy dust.
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Like, there's a lot of times.
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Yes.
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And there's good and there's good times.
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And so that's a way it's just to tell yourself that is something we don't always talk about.
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But it's so true.
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But I love it because it also challenges me to think of better ways to say something or like better ways to do things.
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It's like a, just like you said, it's the dopamine can be good or bad.
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The dopamine rush of like scrolling is obviously for me.
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It's like a negative thing usually.
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But the dopamine thing for me to create and see something that's helpful or successful.
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Like that motivates me to want to do more of that.
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I agree.
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Yeah.
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I love being a voice for people that feel like they don't have a voice or, um,
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committing this information or even like one thing that you do,
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like I could tell one patient face to face this piece of advice.
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But I can get on my phone and give that same piece of advice and give that to 50,000 people.
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And that is just so powerful.
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So powerful.
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And yeah, I think it's just such a great, great tool that we can use to help people.
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And I love it.
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Have you recruited a lot of your staff to do the videos with you?
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I think I haven't seen recently, but I think you do some with your team.
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And then some just by yourself.
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Is that still how you kind of operate?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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We do a lot of fair amount together.
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I'll say, but I don't recruit them to do it.
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They, I just kind of allow it to come naturally.
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Like they, they enjoy it.
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Some, some of them more so than others.
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And so yeah, like we'll come up with ideas together, fun things together.
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Or if we're like being a surgeon, you're not always with your team.
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So like I have a piece of an image of their days.
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We're all together in clinic.
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We're all working together.
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We'll usually do a few videos to kind of slowly post out.
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There's some days that are super crazy.
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We're running around like when no time is so, you know, we don't do it that.
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So it just kind of is variable.
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But yeah, we keep it fun.
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You do question for you.
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And maybe you don't know the answer to this.
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So do you know where you like what's next for that part of your life, the lady spine doc kind of?
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Is there something that you're moving towards or working on or?
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And maybe you don't know that.
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Maybe it's just for fun.
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And you're just trying to take a day by day.
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But I think knowing you and I'm knowing us, there's always like, you know, kind of planning for the future.
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So I was curious if you had anything to share.
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Yeah, I mean, you know, I just love what I do as long as I'm having fun with it.
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I'm rolling with it and see where it grows.
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I mean, do I have plans for a takeover like not necessarily.
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But I just, you know, I, I just really loved being able to inspire others and give some type of substance to the world that people find valuable.
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So yeah, I just kind of go day by day and, you know, I more or less just want to have a good time and be that positive vibe.
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And whenever that stops is what I'm done, I guess.
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I don't know.
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I love it.
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For people who are watching who might want to be, you know, who are starting on social media or like maybe they're the old you.
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What are some of the things that you started to do?
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Like are you like writing notes in the notes section of your phone?
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Are you saving things for a Sunday afternoon and batch recording?
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Like what's some of that process look like?
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So to be a good content creator, you have to be a good content consumer.
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So that's a part that I think a lot of people like don't realize so if I am scrolling, it's growing scrolling scrolling.
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I'll find training sounds, things that I think, ooh, that's a good idea.
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Like let me, let me do that like me, like turn that into my own type of vibe.
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And training audio is really the best way to grow as a creator because I algorithm really like set type of stuff.
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And so you want to find something that will resonate and make people watch it, but then want to click on your profile and learn more about you.
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So it's not just doing some kind of stupid dance because there's dime a dozen of those, but maybe I could do it a dance and educate or whatever the case may be of or doing a training audio,
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but overlay it with verbiage related to my space.
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That's like kind of what I do. So I'll make it. I have a notes thing in my phone that I'll take notes in.
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I'll favorite videos and then I have calendars of stuff and I also don't be afraid to like, take things that has been successful for you and do it again.
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So maybe not reposing the same video because the algorithm doesn't necessarily like that, but just refill that.
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Do it again. Do the same script, exact word for word verbatim or switch it up a little bit because that type of stuff that's successful you can learn from and repurpose sometimes particularly if you're having like a day where you can't think of something to do.
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And really something that's will help you grow is talking about stuff that people want to hear about.
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So that's relevant stuff in the media. If you know for me like brain injury space, spine space, if there's someone in the media that had an injury or there's a hot topic in my field, I'll grab it and you have to do it pretty quick because people want to know yesterday.
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If I wait a week, it's done. It's all news, but you have to make sure you can speak on it properly and correctly.
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So I really try to stay in my lane in terms of neuroscience stuff that I really know. I'm not going to go out there and speak on the latest treatment innovation and calling cancer because that's not my lane.
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So I think that's where a lot of people kind of mess up as a they try to get so anxious about trying to make content that they want to like, you know, you'll see like podiatrist talking about brain tumors and you know, it's just doesn't make sense. So yeah, that would be my suggestion.
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Yeah, I think one of the things I learned over the years is that you can't want to be an expert in everything anyway. And like you said, it's very tempting to want to give your two cents on like the newest, you know, I treatment or whatever.
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But I've learned that over the years like, you can have an opinion here and there, but really trying to stay within your area of expertise is where it's going to land better with people.
spk_0
And if you don't have an area for people who don't have an area of expertise like their general medicine or their general whatever pick a lane, you know, like pick something that you feel like for me, I never wanted to be like a women's health expert, but I'm a woman.
spk_0
And guess what? Like I started to talk about things that are important to me and that is considered women's health now. And so sometimes you'll just find your kind of angle once you start to realize like, what are you good at?
spk_0
What are you interested in is a whole that people are not getting from their doctor or the rest of social media or whatever.
spk_0
And then last social media question, are you more of a TikTok creator and Instagram creator? Do you create on TikTok and then repost on Instagram? Like, how does that work for you?
spk_0
I'm a TikToker. That's where I grew and that's where I learned how to innately fill my content. Most of my content is filmed intrinsically within the app or just I'll fill my own iPhone edit it, cap cut.
spk_0
But yeah, I just repurpose all my content every app. So, you know, I love TikTok and Instagram or my two favorite apps. If I'm scrolling personally, want to look at content myself, those are the apps that I go to.
spk_0
You know, I also post on Facebook, YouTube, all those things that don't go there natively to get content though.
spk_0
I'm the same ways do I think most people are like I know how important YouTube is and YouTube shorts and stuff, but I don't really go on YouTube or YouTube shorts unless it's a part of my search engine, you know, result.
spk_0
So I think that's it's a really different way. You're not really like just scrolling there. I didn't really do TikTok at all in the beginning. And it's so funny because I went backwards. I went from Instagram to TikTok.
spk_0
But I found that it's kind of easier to grow on TikTok and like find your niche on TikTok. Instagram is kind of like really saturated and very difficult.
spk_0
Although that was my native. So I still love it.
spk_0
Yeah, I love about Instagram and TikTok are my two favorite platforms.
spk_0
How do you feel about speaking? I know you do a lot of speaking these days. Is that something that's like, you know, you feel really good about or that's just part of something.
spk_0
You know, you're not as into live events or is that something you love?
spk_0
No, I love it. I love, I mean, like, you know, I'm a teacher at heart. So I love just that interactive feedback that you get from being live or in person with people. It's real social tends to distance us a lot and gives us this like shielding effect.
spk_0
Whereas, you know, being live with people, I think helps you make better connections and networking and stuff like that. So I really enjoy speaking and teaching.
spk_0
And it's a part of what I've grown doing too and all that same token, you know, like doing podcasts and stuff like that. I think is is also kind of on my vision board.
spk_0
Yeah, I think you would be a great podcaster. You don't have one yet. Do you?
spk_0
Not yet. All right. This is your, this is your, you know what I did, Betsy, just to make it easy. I'm sure this is going to work so much better. So in the beginning, I was like, oh, I'm just going to go to a studio locally and like fill. I'm not going to get this whole setup. Like that doesn't make sense.
spk_0
And then it was like that barrier of like, you know, when you're making content, you can just do it anytime anywhere. And then this whole podcasting, it became like a big weight on my shoulders because it would be like, I don't really feel like doing a podcast today, but it's like booked at the studio.
spk_0
And like, I got to go and sometimes I wouldn't be in the right. I would be rushing because something came up or whatever.
spk_0
And so what I decided finally is like, you know, we make so much content anyways that it's kind of worth it to have a home studio.
spk_0
Although obviously in Instagram and TikTok, you do not need any fancy cameras or anything at all. But for you, I think and for me, it kind of opens up a different avenue of taping.
spk_0
So like at first, I got the cameras and the setup and I did all this podcast setup for a podcast. But now I'm using it for other things like I'm filming some partnerships programs here. I'm filming like my own personal stuff. I'm using the camera for other things. So like, I could totally see you being doing it that way and making it like really easy and maybe an extension of your life rather than like making it this hard thing and podcast.
spk_0
You know, it's a long game and you pretty much it's not like, you know, you can get traction very easily. But I think that's our do you have a book? Not yet.
spk_0
Okay. That's is that in the in the future cards? Possibly. Possibly. I don't know. It's so much.
spk_0
I would love to do a book and I'd love to do a podcast. Those are the two things. I just need more time.
spk_0
You need a couple more hours in your day. Okay. That's what that was my next question. Can you take us through a doctor grunge, day in the life, pick a day and take us through it?
spk_0
Oh, boy. So it depends on if it's an OR day or a, you know, an office clinic day or an off day, the remote chance of an off day. But for the most part, you know, I take my kids to school every single day.
spk_0
I wake up, get ready, get them dressed. That is like my priority one is my kids get them in the car school and then whatever the day brings. So officer surgery.
spk_0
And then I do my content kind of like actually have a little bit more downtime on surgery days because there's times in between cases. So sometimes I'll film content like on the fly there.
spk_0
And then, you know, office days are always chaotic and busy and crazy. So I usually don't have time to do much there. But yeah. And then just going back and forth. I have a big team. So like I have my socials team. So, you know, often like pre film content, obviously, for the day. And so communicating with them, my brand manager.
spk_0
And I have a like you said earlier, a side business. We're selling merch stuff like that. So we have that team. And then I have my clinical team. Then I have like my husband and my family. The man is my child team. So we're like constantly like where do I need to be? Where do I need to go? Who tells me where I need to go next? So it's chaos. But it's fun.
spk_0
Is your husband and medicine or not? Or does he? No, he stays at home. Is he mostly doing the child's care stuff when you're not around? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just looking.
spk_0
We were we're a team. But yeah, he does all of the all the home stuff. Yeah. So what time do you usually get in and get out? So if it's a surgery day, what time do you have to get in and get out and then clinic day?
spk_0
We started 7 30 and I try to be done by four or five no matter what I'm doing and then come home and do the kids after school stuff, baseball, whatever the case is all the stuff that's going on now. And then dinner with the family and then put the kids to bed. And then after they go to bed, content and workout. So.
spk_0
Oh, so you do you work out like late late in the evening late. And so how does that work like when do you go to bed then or you don't go to my question? Do you just not sleep? Yeah. I usually get about five hours. Wow. That's not good. But that's that's what I do. Yeah, I usually work out about like 10 to 11 30. I just find myself a be a better more productive physically, exertional in the evening where I'm not so time crunched.
spk_0
I'm not a good morning person despite being a surgeon. I hate getting up early. So I'd rather stay up late and like push through my workouts. And then after you workout, you're like my brain is like here. So let's go film some.
spk_0
Yes. And then you don't usually work on weekends. Correct.
spk_0
I take call every fifth weekend. So yeah, so we have five. Yeah. So it's most weekends are fine.
spk_0
Let's talk about something that I think I faced a lot of and I'm sure you have what about the naysayers or the haters, what kind of negativity have you gotten with your new lifestyle or you know, I'm sure you have multiple cases. But what is like something that you want to share.
spk_0
Yeah. I mean, the higher you climb, the more of that you get. And it's so it's a natural part of life, but it's a very hard part of life.
spk_0
Because you do things because you want people to like you and you want to be yourself and everybody wants that positive feedback. But the reality is, is that's not the case.
spk_0
You know, no matter where you go, there's going to be people that don't like you because you're you. But no matter where you go, there's going to be people that like you because you're you.
spk_0
And so you just and I teach my kids this, you have to really like try to focus on the positivity because you're always be negativity.
spk_0
And unfortunately, you know, sometimes the higher you get, the higher the negativity is and it's hard because we all have this, you know, like I said, this feeling that we want to be everybody's everything and we just can't be.
spk_0
So it's a hard part of this that I don't think a lot of people like to talk about, but I've had, you know, people try to take me down left and right.
spk_0
And it's like for what? What have I ever done to you that's made you feel this way? And it's because their own internal, you know, biases or things that's happened to them that make them feel like they need to lash out at someone they don't even know.
spk_0
I mean, that's just humanity. Unfortunately.
spk_0
Have you faced any criticism from people in the medical community? Oh, yeah.
spk_0
Really? I mean, I feel like I feel like health care is the most toxic environment that's ever been created.
spk_0
Yeah, I mean, you know, I find the most people that want to take you down is I or at least in my experience is other people in the field for what reason.
spk_0
And then again, it's I think in health care as physicians, we are trained starting from pre-med that we're in this competitive atmosphere that we have to be better than the next person to be a success.
spk_0
And it just is this learned behavior pattern through pre-med through med school through residency that we feel like we have to climb over others.
spk_0
And some people don't I've never been that way. I've always wanted to bring people up with me, but we judge ourselves against how successful the next person has and and that learned behavior pattern is the same and nursing and all other types of aspects of health care and it becomes almost like a personality trait for some people.
spk_0
And it's an unfortunate thing. Well, I think you're doing an amazing job and I agree with you. I think it's very tempting for people. It's almost, you know, in medicine, anyone who's kind of like outside the little box that some, I don't know who creates that little box, but is criticized for one reason or the other.
spk_0
But I think as long as for at least for me the way I think about it, and I know you do probably too is like as long as I'm helping people it's coming off in a way that's, you know, people can learn from it or people can use that information for good. That's all that matters to me anyways.
spk_0
So thank you for sharing. I think that helps a lot because there's so many people who want to get started or are just starting and the biggest fear is what will other people say or what will other people doing.
spk_0
And like the fact of the matter is yes, there will be people who won't like what you're doing. There will be people who criticize you, but it doesn't matter. That's like anything you do in life. That's going to happen.
spk_0
And agree. And the easier and faster you learn how to deal with those things and not let it bother you. I mean, you just have to stay on bothered as long as you're being yourself, you're enjoying what you're doing.
spk_0
Realize that there are always going to be people that want to judge you. And it's just a natural part of growth. And it's, it's just something we all have to learn how to deal with.
spk_0
Well, thank you for being so candid. And I think a lot of people will find value in that little part of the talk as well as, you know, talking about how you how you do it all and the neurosurgery or the spine part as well.
spk_0
So tell us how to find more about you, how to find more about your merch, how to follow you, all the things.
spk_0
So I am lady spine doc on all platforms. I feel, you know, my goal, like I said, is just to inspire and educate and have a good time on the same token. I have started like a little medical boutique that gives people just a sense of I love fashion and kind of wearing what I believe in.
spk_0
So lady spine doc calm is the boutique that I've started that really just speaks to me in terms of, you know, certain fun things, but also raising awareness for certain conditions and raising money for certain conditions that I feel aligned to and passionate about and have been able to grow and bring other creators on board with us and our brand to kind of do the same.
spk_0
And it's just been it's been a really fun experience. So I love it. I think that's all of what you're doing is really inspiring and I love that you're getting into or you have gotten into the fashion world and one that's one area besides dancing that I will not enter is the fashion world.
spk_0
But I'm so happy that you made the time to be on I know you're incredibly busy. We really, really appreciate your insights and your candidness and I think everyone should follow you at lady spine doc. Thanks so much for being here.
spk_0
Thank you for having me. You all have a great day.
Topics Covered
Betsy Crunch
neurosurgeon
spine health
minimally invasive spine techniques
women's health
postpartum care
ergonomics
nicotine and spine health
social media in healthcare
empowering healthcare professionals
injury prevention
core strength
hydration and spine health
squats and spine safety
healthcare inspiration