Episode 12: Saving Backs One Worker at a Time with the Industrial Athletic Trainer Society

00:00

Welcome back to another episode of Beyond Giving, the best nonprofit podcast on the Boost Network sponsored by nonprofits HQ. This week, we’ve got Susan from the Industrial Athletic Trainer Society telling us all things about athletic trainers in the industrial space.

00:19

Awesome, thank you so much for joining us on Beyond Giving, Susan. It’s exciting to have you here. um I’m excited to learn and for our viewers to learn more about the Industrial Athletic Trainer Society and how you guys are creating positive change in your communities. So let’s start with kind of a brief introduction from you and then we’ll talk a bit about what your organization does. Yeah, absolutely. So I have been an athletic trainer for almost a decade now. I’ve spent almost  all  of my… oh

00:47

time professionally  in the industrial setting. So  for people who don’t really know what athletic trainers are, what we do, we are healthcare providers who typically come from sports, right? So if you think about NFL or college sports or even high school sports, most schools or teams have an AT there who provides the majority of the healthcare for these athletes. Most of their issues are going to be musculoskeletal concussions, heat illness, things like that.

01:16

So that’s kind of the backbone of our education  is that MSK assessment, treatment, rehabilitation. um And then of course, preventative health, making sure they’re fit to be able to participate in active sports and so on.  Now,  AT for decades has been able to get into other fields where you have your typical active people. So think of your military or firefighters, dancers, even NASA.

01:45

um And then your industrial settings, a lot of them have athletic trainers available to them. And that’s because a lot of musculoskeletal injuries,  a lot of general health is needed and things like that.  that’s been my background. I’ve done everything from manufacturing to construction to distribution,  beer delivery. Yeah. So I’ve been able to work with all sorts of workers in this country.

02:10

And that’s kind of how we came to be, right? So our organization specifically advocates for providing health care to these workers, the ATEs who provide the bulk of their health care and just general education  on industrial workers, the average American worker and what we can do to help them be healthier. Okay, awesome. And so how do you kind of provide that? Like what is,  how do you provide those services to those various groups? And are you partnering with like employers or folks in those industries? What does that look like for you guys?

02:38

That’s a great question. So your typical model is going to be an employer who says, hey, we need  more, right? We want a uh higher level of care for our workers. So  they’re going to typically bring in, it can be  a third party service. So this can be kind of some of your hospital groups,  your AT specific companies, physical therapy groups that provide occupational care services. I’m sure that’s a common term people have heard.

03:07

they’re gonna come in  and deliver that service. Now, if you think about what occupational health or occupational medicine looked like 15 years ago,  it was typically a nurse, right, who would do like drug testing, or maybe you’d have an EMT on a construction site if someone had like a serious trauma. I think  as healthcare in this country continues to go the direction it’s been going  and  as…

03:34

employers demand more from their workers, honestly, as far as production.  They’ve needed a higher level of care. so, you know, it’s really good for me because  when I think about the time I spent in traditional sports, so in education,  you always have to spend on you have to do clinicals and they’re going to be sports oriented normally, because that’s where ATs normally work. I’m with my baseball team, for example, I was with Radford D1 baseball for a season, two seasons.

04:03

So baseball is your sport earlier you said you all come from a sport and so baseball was your sport? Yeah, so you would get assigned a team so you’d have to do a football intensive you’d have to do and then you would get clinicals like during the semester of the year. So I was with baseball as my assigned sport  and you’re everywhere with them. You’re at Lyft, you’re trudging through the snow to the indoor diamond because they’re throwing bullpens, right? You’re in the dugout every practice, every game, you’re on the road. So these players have access to someone.

04:32

all the time, whether they’re healthy or they’re sick. So I know what, say, one of our catchers is like, what is his normal disposition? What does he normally walk like? How does he normally act? I know that because I’m always around. So when something’s off, I can be like, what’s up? know, something’s going on.  And so  workers, where they have an AT, have access to someone who is around when they’re healthy, which when you think of how healthcare normally goes,

04:59

When you’re sick, you go see a nurse. When you chop off your arm, you call an EMT.  And that’s kind of what most healthcare providers are used to providing. If you need me, you call me.  As ATs, we’re just kind of used to hanging around. And I think that’s why some employers have kind of just drifted towards that is because we’re everywhere. Like you can be pouring concrete at six in the morning, I’m chilling at the concrete pour, you know, just watching things go down. Yeah,  you can be…

05:24

picking cases of beer in a warehouse and throwing them on pallets. And I’m out there, you know, watching biomechanics, seeing how people are doing, you know? So that’s definitely a different model,  but it’s a really good model. And I remember when I was in athletics, I was like, man, everyone should have access to someone like this, especially your firefighters, your police officers,  your  laborers, you know? They deserve someone who knows what they’re like, knows how to help them.

05:49

perform better, knows how to help them stay healthier.  And so that is really kind of an investment a lot of employers have been making. And again,  some companies hire them directly. There are a few, I won’t name them, but they hire ATs directly into their services. Some just contract out and say, yep, we want one of these people to be there for our teams. And so what do you do with that information? So you said that, you know, you have an AT there, they’re watching, they can identify this stuff. How does that actually in practice work in?

06:17

You know, if you’re working for a fire department or working with a fire department or a warehouse or whatever, what comes out of that? That’s a great question.  anything from  more knowledge about the types of injuries we’re getting or what’s going on, right? So I’ll give a great example. ah We had I’ve seen a lot of shoulder injuries. I’m sure I’ve seen a lot of shoulder injuries in my time.

06:44

And it’s always very interesting to me how  shoulder injuries, at least, you know, chronic ones or ones that are not like traumatic, you know, they have a different form, uh can occur from poor biomechanics or something else, not even going on in the body, right? Sometimes we look at the spine, we look at other reasons that’s when we can have shoulder pain. As an AT in the industrial setting, I’ve learned to look even at the work that’s happening. So two great examples, when I was in beer, we would have guys complaining about shoulder injuries and we’re getting just…

07:11

repeat shoulder injuries, I’m like, what’s going on with these guys’ shoulders? And so when I was kind of getting the history of like, okay, tell me what, you know, what’s going on on your route or what you were doing. And they were like, oh, I was pulling down my trailer door and I just felt this pop in my shoulder. Okay, let’s go over to your trailer door and see what’s going on. So one thing we found out was a lot of these doors were sticking, right? Like you think about a garage door over time, it just gets old and like terrible. Now you probably don’t open your garage door by hand. 30 times a day. But these guys do. And so.

07:41

that repetitive on a door that’s messed up and not smoothly rolling and they’d say, yeah, I’d put in a maintenance request for it three weeks ago, but they haven’t fixed it.  And so being able to work with the fleet department who does all their maintenance and make those a priority fix and having preventative maintenance done on those handled a lot of those shoulder injuries. And so that’s probably the benefit of bringing you folks into an organization, right? If you have access to all these different things, you’re looking at it from a different perspective, looking at different things.  And then it’s maybe,

08:11

Maybe it is  some treatment for the shoulder, but also fixing this door so you can prevent those injuries, things like that. That’s interesting.  And so um when you guys, when the athletic trainer society started,  can you tell us, walk us through why it started and what that process was? Definitely. So obviously, AT’s like a very big profession  and the majority of AT’s still work sports.  Sidelines, dugouts.

08:40

high schools, colleges, they’re in those main settings and naturally our main governing organizations take care of those ATs. So I think there’s a couple of us in other settings who are kind of like these redheaded stepchildren of the profession because they’re like, oh man, if you’re not there when the whistle blows, what are you even doing? And I’m like, saving construction workers backs one at a time. So that was really part of

09:08

what happened with the society. I’ve been thinking about it for a really long time. Believe it or not, a lot of sports settings also have their own societies. So PFATS is one we really know. They’re the professional football ATs. So all your NFL ATs have their own little club. You have the basketball, pro basketball. They kind of have their own thing. And a couple of the other ones. And as I was thinking about it, I said, know, industrial kind of needs its own space, not just because.

09:36

of being able to directly  advocate for industrial ATs. AT education,  continuing education, clinical exposure is very sports-based. But when I think of all the things I’ve seen in sports, right, or in industrial, someone gets a major concrete burn.

09:56

usually is not gonna be something you’ve seen. Which I did not even know a concrete burn was a thing until I know somebody whose dad ended up with one. Oh man, they’re brutal. That’s crazy. Yeah, they can get rough. I mean, I’ve seen everything from that, or even learning that like rubber tar, right? You don’t peel rubber off somebody because you’re gonna take whatever that skin is with it. That gets cut around and sent to an ER. Like there’s so many interesting,  understanding some gen-med issues that people have and how they affect them in the workplace. Gen-med? disease.

10:26

General medicine. Heart disease, gout, you know? So having a worker who’s having a gout flare up, right? Like knowing. So a lot of that stuff is not where you’re going to get when you’re dealing with the healthiest 2 % of individuals in a society. And so that is something that I was like, you know, we deserve more knowledge and education about this and the levels of exposure and things that our workers deal with. A perfect example I can give is heat. So heat.

10:54

ATs are the leading heat experts typically out of your healthcare providers. because think about it, football, your summer sports,  even your marathoners and people like that, right? So we’re used to heat exposure, how heat affects  a body that’s exerting itself and what that looks like and what saving that person’s life looks like.  That’s  put in our heads a million times over uh during our education. But in the industrial setting,

11:20

Heat looks way different. It’s not like football where we’re saying, we’re pads, you know, we’re no pads today, or we’re canceling practice, or no two a days, or we’re limiting exposure outside. For workers, it can be a 10-hour day, 12-hour day, and odds of youth canceling the day for a company is pretty slim. very slim. And so how are you navigating heat with these workers to keep them safe, to prevent them from some of these illnesses? You see military and agriculture

11:49

These people have really high rates of certain diseases because of just the time they’re exposed, not even just that heat. So it’s education like this that was really sticking out to me of like, man, we really need a place to bring ideas together, educate, advocate for ourselves, and educate like workers, employers, even general people about what we do. I think even for a worker who’s like, oh, my workplace just got an AT, what does this mean for me?

12:15

If they go and they look up athletic trainer online,  they’re going to be watching, you know, basketball, somebody running out there and they’re going to be like, that’s never going to happen to me. And so  we are kind of an arm to educate and say, this is what this means. This is what they can do. This is how they can guide your care even. And I think that’s so important too, because after we first met, that’s exactly what I did. Google what the hell is an athletic trainer, right? What do they do? And that’s what I saw sports, you know, all this stuff.  So

12:43

taking that idea and putting it into the general workforce and providing that same access is such an amazing idea.  So what have you kind of in doing this, what have you guys learned about like the relationship with employers versus employees, working conditions and what types of  things are kind of next for that? Yeah, definitely. Great question. ah I think.

13:06

Man,  we’ve been through so much lately, right? Like you see how the world changes and we see really key how that affects employment. COVID, for example, we were testing  everybody in sight, right? Cause a lot of employers leaned on their healthcare providers of like, you’re doing all this testing,  you’re figuring out who’s doing what, you know? So we  leaned on,  you know, our clinical groups, our physicians who back us and, you know, organize and supervise us.  And that was a totally different world.

13:34

And then post that you’ve kind of had like a lot of the mental health drive, right? So like the past few years have been a lot of a focus on mental health. And I’ve definitely seen firsthand, like the mental health struggles of the working population, which is usually pretty reflective of the country because everyone here works for the most part.  Ideally, I mean,  we got a lot of people, unfortunately, not working these days, but everyone for the most part is going to be working. And so we really get a view into how people are feeling, what’s bothering them, what’s going on.

14:04

A really good example I’ll give is the past year or so in the construction industry, I’ve been in the construction industry for the bulk of the past three, three and half years.  And the past year or so we’ve really focused on things like financial education,  mental health, self care and personal wellbeing, because that’s just kind of what everyone’s struggling with, right?  They just don’t know what to do. They’re having family problems. And so that’s been a huge evolution that I’ve seen recently.

14:33

I think as American healthcare continues to trend in a direction of awful, terrible. I’m just gonna, let’s just be honest. know, absolutely. As it continues to trend the way it’s trending, man, I really think we’re going to see a continued focus on prevention, wellbeing. And that’s another great thing about being an ET is we see a lot of things before they’re gonna become a problem.

14:58

And part of our job is actually a pillar of our clinical practice is health is like wellness,  prevention, risk reduction. So looking at people who have  kind of harmful tactics, Zins or Vinz or Zellos or whatever those things are called.

15:15

That has been something I have been on a soapbox for for a long time, because that’s risky behavior, right? You take  a nicotine addiction and make it very comfortable for people. So even before that was vaping. So I think as we continue to see, screen time has been a big thing that I’ve been focusing on for myself as well. eh But for everyone. So kind of  building these habits, seeing how do I help you build a life and reduce your risk of even needing

15:43

to be in the healthcare system because we know how tough it is, but also getting you there when you need to be there. I deal with a lot of people you can imagine who haven’t seen a doctor in 15 years. And I’m like, okay, you have many problems, friend. Like I’m seeing some of them just from this evaluation. I’m gonna get you to a GP. You need a primary care physician. Definitely. Let’s make it happen. And then just encouraging them to keep taking care of themselves. A lot of people don’t do well with their health because…

16:10

They may go to the doctor, but then they don’t take their meds or they skip their follow-up or this and that. And again, as ATs, our job is to know our workforce, our population, our people and say, hey, did you do the thing? Did you do what you had to do? So we’re on them all the time and it’s free for them. It doesn’t cost them anything. And that’s the great thing, you know, is we don’t bill insurance. We don’t do any of those things. And that lets us focus on the people at the end of the day. It’s such a holistic approach, which I didn’t know until this conversation.

16:38

You you hear that a lot in healthcare. I take a holistic approach to your healthcare.  But you never actually get that, right? You were talking about financial health and understanding there.  You were talking about people, you know, the way they do their job, the way they physically perform their job, the mental health around things that are going on, which  is not very common. So that’s really cool. But now you said you don’t bill insurance, you don’t do these things. It’s free for the employee. So how do you fund?

17:06

the industrial athletic trainers and where does the the time and the cost actually get covered? Yeah, that’s a great question.  For the organ from my organization for our society were funded through our stakeholders, right? So our sponsors even employers who employ  80s So those are like 80 specific employing companies They sponsor a lot of our things and then of course  80s who want to be members sponsor a lot of our things

17:32

for how care gets to the worker, it’s typically gonna be the employer sponsoring that thing. So they’re gonna pay however they decide to pay for an AT’s services.  And sometimes some people pay for AT’s to be around whenever business is open, right? So  I remember when COVID happened and we shut down, I was at  a rubber manufacturing plant in Arkansas,  been around the block.

17:57

we were all home just, you know, kicking it up for like a month. I’m like, wow, we’re not working. This is a little concerning, but you know, we’ll do our thing. So by month two, they were like, we need to start making money again.  they started working on, we realized this was not going to be any short, easy, you know, pandemic. This was going to stretch. So they started working on getting us back to work. And one of the first things the plant manager said is  we need these ATs in here before we get anybody in this building.

18:23

So they were the, you know, they immediately thought of us, especially probably because it was the health crisis going on. But they said, let’s get them in here  and work on, you know, reopening. So usually the employer is going to fund that. And we were pretty much 24 seven. Anytime the plan was open, we were there kicking it.  And so guys could come to us whenever they needed anything.  We didn’t have to have these short little visits because you got to move on to the next person. you.

18:47

are having a mental crisis because you and your wife got into a fight and you slept on the couch and this and that, and you’re feeling  like you’re not worth anything, we can talk for an hour and a half. That’s fine, I don’t bill a charge. I’m like, take a seat, we’ll be here a while. That’s interesting. And the fact that you said the employer brought you in because they recognize that need, is that very common?  Because I would wonder what the educational piece for the employees to take advantage of it, but also the employers to…

19:16

let you guys in to bring you guys in to do that. I would wonder what that looks like. Cause you know, you’ve got these large retailers, one the largest retailers in the world, a friend works in one of their warehouses  and it’s just not a great environment, right?  But for them, they’re like, what we’re doing is working margins are amazing. We’re going to keep going. So how do you get employers to kind of step back and realize that in the long run, this is actually going to be better? That’s a great question. So there are two main reasons that I would say employers.

19:44

invest in an AT for their workers.  The first one, which to me is not the ideal one, but  the workers will benefit so it’s worth it,  is a high rate of musculoskeletal injuries.  So they got a lot of back  injuries, they’ve got sprains and strains, they’ve got just  gnarly. I’ve looked at some  claim totals  on Workman’s Comp for some companies over even a year and you’re talking millions of dollars, right? So sometimes it is because, okay, this is getting out of control.

20:14

Where can we invest? Maybe they’ve tried a couple other ideas, but if they land on the ATI, I know very few employers who get an ATI and don’t go like,  that’s beautiful, keep doing that. But their main reason is financial, like you said, the bottom line, their incentive. The second reason is going to be that employee wellbeing  is a core value for them, and they see their people as their greatest  advantage.

20:41

As every company actually should. Yes, and that’s my preferred reason. So there are some people who, you know, bring us in and say, yeah, we don’t have a lot of injuries. We don’t have a lot of stuff, but we want someone to  be there for our workers and to understand their health. And if you see things we can fix, of course, like I said, some of those ergonomic projects and stuff. I mean, that would actually go in kind of the previous category. I some who go like, we have a process that’s totally screwed up. Can you like do an assessment on the ergonomics and help us fix it? Right.

21:07

They’re doing that to avoid negative consequences. Not because they think these people deserve to work pain free, they’re thinking for themselves.  So that second category is really like the prime person because those are the people where, for example, we had a construction project out here on the far west side  that we had done a wellness survey.  NIOSH has this thing called the WellBQ, which is kind of just a way to assess people’s general well-being. We just pulled some from that and did an abridged version for our workers.

21:36

And we found out that half of our workers ate one serving of or less of fruits and vegetables. Wow. In a day. And I was like, what’s going on? That is  not good. That’s just, I was really shocked by that number.  Why did that shock you? And why is it so important in the, when you think about this, the construction area,  right? Well, I think it shocked me because  I expected that there would be some, but I didn’t expect it would be half.

22:06

I guess I just generally like to think people are just like throwing a couple of fruits and veggies like in their stomach during the day.  And again, it might be my bias of the work I do that wouldn’t expect it, but  I was floored. I was floored by that. I just, and I think thinking about what not eating fruits and vegetables means for your gut health, you know, for  your  risks as far as like, you’re probably, your diet is probably highly processed.

22:32

So what does that mean for your risks of cancer and comorbidities like hypertension and diabetes? So I was just like, oh man. And I went to the person who was paying for our health group and said, hey, why these workers don’t eat fruits and vegetables? And I can tell them to fruits and vegetables, but I think they need to get fruits and vegetables. Can we invest in them being able to eat fruits and vegetables? And they’re like, oh, what are you thinking? was like, well, maybe we do like a fruit Tuesday or fruit Friday or something. And we started having weekly deliveries of fruit.

23:01

one day a week and we would have workers, we had a huge table just piled high with fruits  and we’d be like, please come eat fruits.  That’s amazing. Yeah. That’s so cool. Because you also, like I come from a software engineering background, right? Where a healthy balanced diet is a monster in a bag of hot Cheetos, right? Right. That’s just how we are.  And, but when you think about like vegetables and you think about fruit, especially when you’re talking about folks that aren’t, you know, athletes that are making, you know, on a $20 million contract.

23:30

access to those becomes tough, If you’re in, you know, if you’re  working one job and supporting 10 kids and your whole family and things like that, know, uh vegetables and fruits can be pretty pricey, especially here in Texas, right?  And so, so that’s an amazing like way to close that gap. I think that really highlights the importance of

23:52

Folks like you these athletic trainers coming into these various different industries because you  you took this  or did this survey, right? You learned that they weren’t taking  in the fruit and vegetables that they should yeah, right and then you solved it Yeah, most places that’s where it drops off right should eat more vegetables. You should eat more fruits  box checked We’re done right right the fact that you guys bring that all the way through  that’s really cool and then like

24:17

got the company to weekly deliveries. Like that’s insane. That’s so cool. They were so bought in. And again, that’s why that employer who sees them is important. It’s why I prefer because like you said, most people say, oh, well educate them that you need five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. And I’m like,

24:34

Why do you think these full grown adults are not eating fruits and vegetables? You need five? Yes! Wow! Okay. How many do you think you needed? I don’t know, I figured like a couple. Like, I don’t know. Five servings of fruits and vegetables. Wow, okay. Every day. That’s a lot. That’s hilarious because yes, so education is going to be part of the gap there, right? And then some of it is like…

24:57

how you were brought up. Like I had workers who were asking what fruits were. So I had workers eat pears for the first time,  peaches for the first time. They just had never even had these fruits or tried them.  And that was really cool to see like a 32 year old guy eating a peach for the first time. Oh, okay. And so some of those introducing them, like maybe if you were forced to apples your whole life, you’re not a big fan. There are other fruits out there that you can try. And then like you said, I mean,

25:24

I work with a lot of people who work with their brain, right? So, you know,  a monster’s only gonna take you so far, but I can understand how that can be advantageous with your work.  But a lot of these guys are out here pouring concrete and digging trenches. I’m like, you don’t remember your early soccer days? And obviously that’s not everyone’s life, but I knew as a kid in soccer growing up, those orange slices were everything.  We didn’t have time and you get to just like rip through some orange slices.

25:50

on the sidelines. So I’m like, you don’t feel like your body needs like this good fuel  to help you do this job. These people work with their bodies. That is,  they may not be professional athletes in that they’re on ESPN, but their body is what makes their work. That’s their paycheck. in that way,  professionally, their physical capabilities determine whether their kids can eat, whether they can retire, you know, whether they can provide. So

26:19

Again, getting them in that mindset of investing in the temple  is really cool, especially having people who are stakeholders and say, yeah, we understand the importance. Definitely. Yeah, that’s awesome. And I want to change directions just a little bit now. Yeah. Why did you, Susan, get into this work of everything in the world you could do? Why did you choose  this space?  Yeah, that’s a great question. So  probably for some of the same reasons I’ve kind of like lined out, right. So  growing up,

26:48

When I was really little, I wanted to be a doctor. I was like, yeah, I’m going to be a doctor. What kind of doctor? I didn’t even know. I was just like, I want to be a doctor. I’ve been to my doctor a couple of times. They look cool. I want to be one of  And so I wanted to be a doctor. When I got into middle school,  I was in debate. And I realized I was really good at debate. Real good. So  I said, no, I want to be a lawyer.  I would make a great lawyer. Yeah. so through high school, I was like, I’m going to be a lawyer. I feel it.

27:17

I’m good, I’m too good at this. Paid big bucks to argue, that works. That’s what I’m saying. And so my dad was like,  no, you need to get a different degree before you become a lawyer. And I was like, what do mean? And he was like, you need to like do a medical degree or something. Like you need a background to become a lawyer, which he was not totally wrong. A lot of lawyers do that so that they can practice like specially.  But he was like, yeah, you need some kind of like medical degree or something. Well, in high school, I was playing field hockey and I was playing sports at the time. And so I injured myself like many high school athletes do.

27:47

Where’d I end up at my athletic trainers? In the athletic training room. So that was our clinic, you know, doing my stuff, what I had to do. And I was like, oh, this is pretty cool. What is this? What do you do? And so, you know, that’s kind of how I got exposed to the world of athletic training.  And then junior and senior year of high school, they kind of, know, those pre, pre-professional programs of high school South. Yeah. Yeah. So we had.

28:11

Cosmetology and mechanics and technical theater and athletic training, sports medicine. Really? Yes.  Wow. Yeah. What are the odds of that? I know.  So my junior and senior year, I was in sports medicine, like, pre-professional program. That’s amazing. to learn all the stuff. We would cover games, you know. We would just roll with our athletic trainer and learn about this really cool degree. And so that ended up with me then going to school for that and becoming an AT and…

28:36

Again, most ATs are like, yeah, I’m going to be Friday night light, loving the sports, you know?  And I would say it takes your team going to the 14th inning and losing for the second time for you to go, is this for me?  Is this where I’m going to,  am I going to be out exposed to these elements  all the time?  So  I loved sports. I really did. But during my university education, we actually had an AT student association.

29:04

And I was the president, only two time president in history, R. Ugo Highlanders. Nice. Yeah. And so while I was president, I got a connection with the Volvo truck plant  that we have locally. So largest Volvo truck plant in the world is in Virginia.  They roll out those big rigs all day. They’re gorgeous. Yeah. So  we got to go and do a health fair. The guy who was kind of over there like preventionist was like, hey, we’re doing a health fair for these workers. And we’d love for you guys to like come out and talk about Musco Scuttle. And was like, yeah.

29:33

our AT student association will totally come educate them about, you know, their bodies. And so we got some general chronic stuff and we go out there and we had a booth and we were surrounded by these workers talking about everything from rotator cuff issues to tennis elbow to plantar fasciitis, back pain. They would like read the card. They’re like, yeah, I actually do have like this, these problems.  And that’s when I was like, oh, that’s musculoskeletal injuries with people who don’t throw socks at my head.

30:04

Out of vibing. I kind of dig this. And so  that’s kind of where the passion for industrial came from. I just really saw like, how do you people not know about these injuries yet? Like who is taking care of you? And they’re like, no one. And I was like, what? Because they actually didn’t have A.T.s at the time. They do now, actually. But they didn’t when we went there and we’re educating them. Yeah.  And so I was like, why would I not take care of these people who  are less likely to have someone  with this expertise caring for them?  But

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are very grateful and very much as much in need as my baseball team would be. And so  I went straight industrial after I graduated and passed my boards and I’ve been industrial ever since. Nice. That’s so exciting. Yeah. And so then before we wrap up,  what’s kind of next for the industrial athletic trainers? What do you guys have coming up and then how can the community get involved? What do you need? Definitely, definitely. So.

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What is next? Man, so for our society in particular, if you are a healthcare worker, especially if you work with  any kind of working populations, you don’t have to be an AT. You can be a PT, you can be an OT, a nurse. We love collaborating with our occupational nurses,  physicians who work with working populations. We put out  a lot of education.  Some of it is free.  A lot of it is free actually. So  if there are questions or things that you can learn to help,

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if you’re exposed to workers, help them be better, help them take better care of themselves. Please check out our education.  If you have a topic that you would love to talk about, we’ll take that as well.  We invite a lot  of  allied healthcare providers to talk with us. We actually had the American Heart Association’s uh CMO for prevention. came on  our big event. We have a virtual summit every year in March and he came on and talked about heart disease and preventing heart disease, which was really awesome. Yeah.

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We have safety professionals speak about what they see from the safety perspective and how we as ATs can help. We have other healthcare providers speak. We had a PT speak recently. So I definitely would just love any allied healthcare providers check us out, see what we’re about and see ways that you can, you know, co-learn with us, teach us things. We definitely love the idea of growing healthcare availability for industrial ATs. And then if you’re a safety professional or an employer even, and

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you’re not thinking of ways to better take care of your workers beyond  digital things, you know, or like, oh, here’s a number you can call if you’re having a bad day.  But  the EAPs, yes, which have very low use ratings,  very low. There are ways to invest in your workforce, like having a provider on site, you know, especially providers who  are  trained to be there when people are totally healthy.

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They’re not waiting for an illness or an injury. They understand the need to engage, find warning signs, see risky behavior and kind of intervene. Think about having ATs at your workforce. And if you’re a worker who is like, man, we would love this where I work. That’s another thing. Like see ways to kind of tell your company that this is something you would find valuable. Because actually a lot of these companies don’t directly pay for these sometimes, these costs. Sometimes…

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you have a premium that you have to pay for your workers’ comp insurance or something, and you can actually route some of that premium to go to prevention. Oh, interesting. Yeah. And so that can often pay for part at least of having somebody on site  or things like that. And I think, especially as we see a lot of health insurances, right? They’re trying to get into the wellness vein. Yep. Which valid, they’re seeing that people are just kind of tired of it. They’re tired of, am I getting out of you?

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besides having to go through a circus every time I need  to get some healthcare. So a lot of people are like, I don’t even feel like I’m getting any value out of this. So they’ve been adding certain things to try and of prop up that value, wellness being a big one of those.  And it’s very interesting for me to see  how they go about that because again, when you think about how for-profit healthcare and how for-profit insurance works, right? What is the incentive to take care of these people?

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or even see these people as people and not just the number in the bin, there really isn’t one.  And thankfully, because of our profession and what we’re about and what we do, we are fully incentivized to have a happy and healthy workforce. So even where employers may be more concerned about the dollars,  we don’t have to worry about dollars.  Our job is to take care of these people, keep them healthy, find ways for them to work easier, live better, and reach a higher quality of life.

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And that’s our whole job and we don’t bill anybody else for that. And it really  leads to great outcomes. So that’s awesome. Yeah. That’s so cool, Susan.  And where can people learn more about the industrial athletic trainer society, websites, socials? You can find us  on LinkedIn at industrial athletic trainer society. You can find us on Facebook at industrial at society. You can find us at our website, www.industrialats.com  and

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really any of the socials, Instagram, Industrial AT Society, and so on. So just Google search us and hopefully we pop up. We’ll also throw all of those links in the description so folks can find you directly. Well, thank you so much for joining us on the best nonprofit podcast on the Boost Network, Susan. It was amazing having you and learning about your background and your organization. Awesome. Thanks for having me, Zach. To learn more about the Industrial Athletic Trainer Society, visit the links in the description below.

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Also, don’t forget to like and share this video and to learn more about the Beyond Giving podcast, visit us online at theboost.fm slash beyondgiving.