The Berman Method
The Berman Method
Episode #189: Western Medicine Continuing Education Pros/Cons
Ever wonder why America leads the world in all the wrong health categories? In this revealing conversation, we pull back the curtain on why conventional medicine continues failing millions while a small percentage of dedicated practitioners fight to deliver truly transformative care.
The statistics are shocking. The average American woman in her late 30s now qualifies as clinically obese, with 42% of women between 35-55 falling into this category nationwide. Despite these alarming trends, most healthcare providers continue offering the same cookie-cutter solutions that clearly aren't working. We share our personal experiences fighting against this broken system, including the extraordinary lengths we go to in pursuing advanced education while most practitioners take the path of least resistance.
The difference between quality and mediocrity in healthcare often comes down to investment—both time and financial. While Jenny completed a year-long fellowship to become board-certified in anti-aging medicine and Jake regularly attends intensive hands-on training weekends, most providers settle for online courses they barely pay attention to. This distinction dramatically impacts patient outcomes. When we visit large "mill" clinics where therapists juggle multiple patients simultaneously, it becomes painfully obvious why these approaches fail to create lasting change.
For active individuals seeking optimal health, understanding this distinction is crucial. Cookie-cutter healthcare might work for someone transitioning from sedentary to slightly active, but it can't address complex issues or help you reach your full potential. As we often tell clients—we're selling Bentleys while conventional medicine offers used Camrys with 300,000 miles. The choice is yours, but the outcomes will differ dramatically.
Ready to experience healthcare that actually solves problems rather than masking symptoms? Visit bermanpt.com to learn more about our physical therapy and wellness services or follow us across social media platforms. Your health deserves more than the minimum standard—it deserves excellence.
This is the Berman Method podcast, featuring Dr Jake Berman and physician assistant Jenny Berman. We are here to treat problems and not symptoms. Disclaimer this podcast is for entertainment purposes only and not to treat anyone or to give medical advice. If you are interested in any information that we are giving and would like to use this for yourself, we recommend that you contact your primary care physician or reach out to us and ask us questions about yourself specifically. Enjoy.
Speaker 2:Here we go, baby. The Berman Method podcast focused on treating problems and not symptoms.
Speaker 1:Your co-hostess is Dr Jake Berman, here with Jenny Berman, physician assistant, and Walker Ryan Bermanator, walker Ryan sitting with us this morning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Sitting tall, stable, a lot of trunk control starting to kick in Heads. Head and neck are doing good.
Speaker 1:Starting to eat some food.
Speaker 2:Oatmeal, peanut butter, peanut butter.
Speaker 1:He loves peanut butter.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, Must be genetic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there probably is something to that. If you didn't listen to last week's episode with our other sidekicks, you definitely need to go back. Might be my favorite episode out of the 188 that we've recorded.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a ton of fun. And it was kind of bittersweet this morning because usually we send Stella and Vera over to my mom's house while we podcast and Stella goes well, wait a minute. I'm podcasting with you this morning because I'm five and I know how to podcast now.
Speaker 1:She said I already did it last week and it was so good that I just know what I'm doing and now I need to podcast with you every week. I already told Nia and Pop-Pop I'm not coming over because I'm podcasting now.
Speaker 2:At five and I'm going. Oh my goodness she's not wrong.
Speaker 1:We have a natural here.
Speaker 2:So definitely go back and listen. It's short and sweet and there are some really good, valuable things. I mean just black and white from a five-year-old. Unprompted from a five-year-old, unprompted, unsolicited, no training or prepping.
Speaker 1:Didn't even tell her what questions we were asked before we recorded Jake's talk. Are you at least going to tell her what you're going to ask her? And I was like no let's see what she says.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and she did awesome. So, getting back on subject, today we are, david, going against Goliath Goliath being the corporate medical system, and I was just in a continuing education course this past weekend and it further cemented that we are on the right path, where what we're doing is still so small as far as the general scheme of healthcare goes. I mean, it's got to be less than 5%. I'd even venture to guess it's probably less than 2 percent, maybe even less than 1 percent. We should probably look it up. I don't know how we would look it up. Maybe we can use AI to ask the question what percentage of Americans are seeking holistic health care? What percentage of Americans are going against traditional American Western medicine models? Not for acute care, right, we're not talking about not acute set of things like a heart attack or a stroke. We're talking about chronic illness. Chronic illness like diabetes. It's skyrocketing. The amount of insulin resistance is skyrocketing. Obesity, orthopedic surgeries what, what was it? I just heard a stat just coming home from the east coast, listening to joe rogan interviewing gary brecca.
Speaker 2:I believe it is yeah, he does the 10x yeah gary brecca and he states this statistic where you you know, America is leading in all the wrong categories Number one for obesity, number one for insulin resistance in the world.
Speaker 1:It's nuts. I actually saw a post just recently where it was an AI, like somebody was asking AI questions, right? So it's AI. We have to like give and take a little bit here. They asked ChatGPT AI what the average height and weight for a 38 to 40 year old female in the United States? Average height five foot three and a half. Average weight 170 to 175 pounds, putting them in the BMI from 30 to 40%, which is obese. So the average 38 to 40 year old female is obese, with a BMI of 30 to 40% or, I'm sorry that was the body fat percentage was 35 to 40%. The BMI was between 29 and 30. And then they asked what percentage of women aged 35 to 55 are obese? And it's 42%. 42% of women between 35 to 55 are obese in the United States.
Speaker 2:That is insane, it's absolutely insane. But again, hopefully we're not preaching or obviously we are preaching to the choir here, but just wanted everybody to know that we're starting to make headway, we're starting to get more popular. We're trying to spread the word. All of you listeners out there are sharing these episodes with other people. We're starting to find people organically and we've got to keep it going.
Speaker 2:And one of the other things that I wanted to do was kind of boast a little bit about Jenny and myself, about the hundreds of thousands of dollars that we're spending on our own continuing education to learn more. And I have to admit that I went the cheap way two years ago. So every two years we have to get continuing education credits to renew our license as a physical therapist every two years. And two years ago, when it was time to renew my license, I admittedly went the cheap way and when I say cheap, I'm talking mainly about investment in time and energy and I did it all online. And it's the first time in my career where I didn't actually go to an in-person course a weekend, two, three-day in-person course and I just did it online.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, I got the credits for the hours and renewed my license and I did it fine. But this past weekend I went back to what I've been doing a lot of which is the Institute of Physical Art. It's who I've been doing 95% of my continuing education through for the past 15 years and the amount of energy that it required, the amount of brain power, the thought process constructive or critical thinking and really learning this new skill that I learned this past week and it was all about the pelvis and the pelvic girdle and it was just amazing how much effort it required but how energized I was by the time I was leaving. And it just requires so much effort to do it that the vast majority of healthcare workers are not going to do it.
Speaker 1:Right, right, yeah, for sure they want to. Now everything can be done virtual, so they just want the easy route of doing it at home, virtually, where they can sit at home on their own sofa, scroll social media, not have to really pay attention and think we don't have to actively perform what they're telling us.
Speaker 2:It's easy yeah it's the easy way versus what Jenny and I have been doing again boasting here is spending ridiculous amounts of time and money on getting these higher level educations. That really separates us from the vast majority of thought process, and there were a couple of people in my class this weekend that do come from traditional Western medicine outpatient physical therapy clinics, where you're just doing this cookie cutter approach and it was very, very obvious when it came time to actual intervention where it's like wait a minute, your hands are not doing anything they should be doing. Versus a skilled tradesman, the hands are kind of autonomous and they're just doing what they should be doing. Versus a skilled tradesman, the hands are kind of autonomous and they're just doing what they should be doing versus trying to figure it out at the same time. And it's further confirmation that you get what you pay for.
Speaker 2:Now here's the best part of my weekend was. So we're in this outpatient surgery center, a room in an outpatient surgery center on the East Coast, and we had eight high-low tables there, and when it was time to put everything away, the course was over. We had to go put the high-low tables. Those are the tables that you lay on when getting treatment back in the physical therapy room. So we're pushing them down this hallway and we go into this physical therapy room and we go in there and I'm going oh my gosh, this place is huge, absolutely huge.
Speaker 2:There was 15 tables in there, it was an entire gym, there was all sorts of recumbent bikes and I'm just going oh my gosh, this place is a mill. It has to be an absolute mill where the physical therapists are treating three to six patients an hour and they're just pointing go okay, go over and do that now, now go do this. And there is zero, zero percent chance that these patients are doing the exercises 100% correct, 100% of the time. It's just not possible. It was an absolute mill and it just gave me further confirmation that we're on the right path. You got to find the right solution for you and the cookie cutter approach works great if you're sedentary and you're not in shape, because it takes you from doing nothing to something. But if you're like the vast majority of our listeners and you are physically active and you do live an active lifestyle, then it's not going to work.
Speaker 1:Right, right, well, and I think that's things that we've talked about several times on this podcast, and if you're new, thank you for joining us and certainly go back and listen to some of our prior episodes as well. But you have to seek out the right provider for your body and you have to do your research and know where is the education from your providers coming from? And is a provider that is seeing you for 10 minutes and putting their hands on you for 10 minutes and then sending you off with a trainer, with a tech, or to do exercises and machines and not actually watching you perform is that actually right for you, versus someone who's with you one-on-one for an hour and can pay attention and do these specific modalities that you're learning on the weekends and spending money to be educated on?
Speaker 2:Exactly so. The same thing is true in your field, where how many times over the past year have you had somebody interested in working with you? And then they find out the price tag and they're like you know what? I'm going to go see the dietician at the hospital, right, right. And it's like what? Like we're not even in the same ballpark, we're not even close. We're selling Bentley's, benz's and Maserati's and you're over on the used car sales, the used car lot, looking at a Camry that has 300,000 miles on it. Yeah, you can go to the hospital and have the dietician work with you once a month.
Speaker 1:What's that like? Right? And it's. There's so many in town in Naples at least, there's so many wellness coaches and nutritionists that got a certification online and they're starting their own businesses and doing nutrition counseling. But then I have to think about, you know, when I see all these posts about them all, I have to think well, what are they actually providing? What training did they get? Did they get their training online? Are they providing the opportunity for these patients and clients to check their blood work and actually know what's going on from the inside out?
Speaker 1:And that's one way you know, with us me specifically, in my practice we have a whole team of providers everywhere, from physician assistants like myself and my other PA that's in the practice to registered dietitian, to a functional nutritionist. We have these elite certifications that allow us to dig deeper into the individual and not just focus on the food by itself. We have to look at the whole picture of how is the food being metabolized and, like you, I went on and have done several. I did a specialized certification for infertility because I found that I had a passion in that and helping individuals with that, and I know what worked for me. I know what's worked in other functional medicine practices, but I actually went on and went for a four-day certification, 10 hours a day, to learn more about functional fertility and become a certified fertility provider and then from there found this passion with this system that I was using. It's called A4M and actually just did a year-long fellowship program to become an anti-aging board-certified, anti-aging health practitioner and that's finally officially official anti-aging health practitioner.
Speaker 2:And that's finally officially official. Congratulations on that. You officially have your official certification.
Speaker 1:I do so you are official but, like you said, there were five modules within my fellowship and the ones that I went in person were night and day different of actually obtaining the information and applying it and talking to the other health practitioners that were there and seeing what they're doing in their practice and learning from them and finding out about these new companies that I could be using to make my testing even better for our clients. And it's just amazing when you spend the time and the money I mean it's expensive to go on these in-person CME trips but the quality of learning and being able to apply it to the patients is just immaculate and the patients thrive off of it. So if you're going seeking a place with functional medicine or physical therapy or even your doctor, you need to learn what are they doing to better their education for you, not just to get the credits on their renewal, but what are they doing that's actually going to help you as the patient, the client.
Speaker 2:That is so important, absolutely crucial, because it's so easy to just find the bare minimum, because life happens right, we've got three kids. Life is absolute chaos right now.
Speaker 1:Especially as a PA. I need 100 hours of continuing education every two years.
Speaker 2:100 hours continuing education every two years, 100 hours, that's a lot of hours If you you know that's more than two weeks worth of full time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, more than two weeks full time of getting continuing education. So certainly it can be. With life being busy, you're like, okay, just go online, pay for these credits and get it done, versus actually going and learning and obtaining and applying.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's tenfold, because, think about it. Here's the most obvious thing, coming from a post-COVID world, when we were having meetings on Zoom, 99.9% of us were multitasking. You look like you're looking at a camera. You're not even wearing pants. You might have put a shirt on, you probably didn't even brush your teeth and you're staring into the camera, but in reality you've got 14 different browsers open and you're emailing and you're checking Facebook and you're texting all at the same time. So you're hearing things, but you're really not hearing things or absorbing things.
Speaker 2:And that's exactly what my continuing education was two years ago when I went to go to renew my license was. I found a course and it was live, virtual, and I could just put the lecture on, and I remember doing yard work for a few hours. I'm out there mowing the grass, trimming trees and okay, yeah, I got my hours. I renewed my license, but I was 0% better as a practitioner. I was doing zero to improve the quality product when I did that. So it really felt nice to get back into the classroom this past weekend yes, it's a beautiful weekend that I gave up, so this was the conundrum, right. So boating is a major part of our life.
Speaker 2:Every Saturday that we're in Naples and the weather is conducive, we're on the boat, so I'm going back and forth for three months. Am I going to go to this or am I going to find some virtual continuing education? And it was the week before Jenny goes did you sign up for that course or not? And I'm like I'm waiting to see what the weather forecast looks like. And the weather forecast comes out and I'm going oh my gosh, it's going to be absolutely beautiful, like one of those weekends that we could actually shoot down to the Keys for a quick trip down to the Keys and back.
Speaker 2:And I'm going. You know what? Screw it, because there wasn't another opportunity between now and November when I had to renew my license for a class on this caliber. I could have found other classes which I did find that were going to be cookie cutter classes that I could have done, but this one was a very high level course and there wasn't any more in between now and November and I said, all right, screw it, there'll be another weekend, let's commit the whole entire weekend and go learn something and do something much better than we possibly could do if I don't.
Speaker 1:Right, and it also comes back to having a coach right, coming back to having someone teach you, guide you, hold you accountable, make you, show them how you're doing it and correcting you, just like we do with our businesses. We've had a business coach. I was just telling a client this. She asked me well, how long am I going to have to do this? I mean, at some point I should be able to figure this out and fly my wings. And I was like I've had a business for five years and I still have a business coach. I'm still seeing this, this coach, eight times a year. And I've owned a business for five years, like you always will need a coach to help you move the needle. If you don't, you're just going to stay in the same spot Like, great, you're doing it, but you're not getting any better.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness, we should probably bring this up at the beginning of the next episode, because I could talk for an hour on this and I've been saying it a lot since we went to the masters. Because what did Scotty Scheffler do? Scotty Scheffler is the number one golfer in the world. He's a prodigy. There's been nobody like Scotty Scheffler since Tiger Woods in the early 2000s. He's just winning. He's a machine. He's unstoppable, absolutely unstoppable. He's number one in the world and at the Masters he was not on his A game. So he finishes a round and he immediately goes to the driving range after the round and his coach is right there coaching him until the sun goes down like nonstop. And this is the number one golfer in the world. You would think if you're the number one golfer in the world, you don't need coaching anymore. You got it figured out. The reality is, you don't Right, you never do.
Speaker 1:Whether it's mental, physical, emotional, things are always changing. There's always going to be curveballs coming in. You need somebody from the outside, in outside, looking in, to help you on the next step. Love it so awesome the outside, in outside, looking in to help you on the next step.
Speaker 2:Love it, so awesome. That was fun. So go back and listen to last week's episode. Share last week's episode. I can't wait. So I told we told Stella to listen to her episode when she's over at my mom's this morning.
Speaker 1:I can't wait to hear what she has to say when she comes back. Ciao, for now, thank you for subscribing on your social media and podcast platforms to the Berman Method Dr Jake Berman with Berman Physical Therapy and Jenny Berman, physician Assistant with Berman Health and Wellness. You can find more information on our website wwwbermanptcom for physical therapy, bermanptcom forward slash wellness for the health and wellness. You can also find us on social media Facebook, instagram and on your podcast platform, so be sure to follow us, like us, subscribe to us and, if you would like any further information, definitely visit our website and reach out to us. You may also find our free reports on the websites as well, where you can download this free information for yourself. Have a great day.