Alex (00:12) And welcome to the next episode of Future Proof Physical Therapy. Today we are honored to have Dr. Chad Cook on our show. So it is a great pleasure and a great honor and I would like for you to introduce yourself, not that you need an introduction.

Chad E Cook (00:25) Well, first of all, thanks for having me on. I've listened to a few of your podcasts and I hope I can stay up. You all are in front, I think. So I'm a physical therapist by training, by clinical training. Right now I'm primarily a researcher. I'm a tenured professor at Duke University, primary appointments in orthopedics. And that's where the DPT program is. I do a little teaching, but mostly research.

I also have secondary appointments in population health sciences and the Duke Clinical Research Center. I dabble in a lot of different types of research, but primarily health services research. I've been doing that health services research for about 27 years, and then I've been a PT for 36 years.

Alex (01:07) So awesome. And of course, my partner in crime, Dana's here.

Dana Strauss (01:10) I can't wait to learn from you more, Chad, and hear more about your research and your perspective on the future of PT from the standpoint that you come at things from.

Alex (01:21) We have to find out what's in the Duke water because every time I reference something, it's either from you or from Trevor or from Kyle. It's always someone like you guys are just an amazing contributors to our industry. But I think healthcare as a whole in this country for what we are.

Dana Strauss (01:24) I

Chad E Cook (01:38) That's very kind of you. We do have a top-notch faculty that we've accumulated over the years. Great leadership. I mean, it really is a fun place to work. A lot of freedom for people to explore things they're really passionate about.

Alex (01:52) Yeah, and we definitely need like your production and we need everything that you have put out there. It has been so immensely helpful. I think we would be in a much different place if we didn't have your scholarship to support our mission.

Chad E Cook (02:05) That's

very nice, but I think I'm one of hundreds of people that have done some great things, you two and how you connect with individuals. Researchers always feel like if you write that paper, somebody will read it. That's not always the case. There needs to be that bridge to the clinical population and to our patients. so this is why this is so important, I think.

Alex (02:28) Yeah, it's amazing. And I would introduce your theory. So I think that this was actually pretty awesome that you had an initiative. Let's look into these five things that physical therapists think they need that they actually may not need. So the framework is going to be pretty simple. Each one from our own unique domain of expertise is going to look into these five systems or five things that our industry believes is absolute necessity that may not be so.

So I think we'll just hit things off with you, Dr. Cook and Chad. Go ahead and tell us what are your things and we'll kind of go one by one. Let's go one at a time.

Chad E Cook (03:05) So, all fine?

One at a okay. I'll start with the fact that we are considered movement experts. And so I'm gonna first obviously preface this by saying I understand why the profession went in that direction. I think it has a lot to do with identity and carving our place and our space as specialists, which I think is really important. I will say that I don't...

necessarily think that reflects what we do as much. I think we do other things that are probably a little bit more important. It concerns me that we're also trying to push some initiatives that haven't stood up that well in science too, like looking at movement dysfunction and whether, or the way a person moves and whether that's related to a pathology or a trajectory or something like that.

So those are concerns I've had around that. Again, you know, I don't want to take shots at anybody. know they're very passionate about this, but it's, um, we're so much more than just movement and hopefully, and you know, I've heard you two say this in either your writings or past podcasts. You know, we are really partners to the patients. We are there for their transition. Um, we are there to, um, help them in their journey.

and movement is a very, very small piece of that.

Alex (04:30) Yeah. And I think that by labeling ourselves movement specialists, we were creating either or framing, right? And that framing almost pigeonholes us into a very specific, secluded part of the industry where there's so much more. And movement is just part of the larger ecosystem. Maybe movement is just easier to digest. I think it's like when you need a label, your industry label, movement becomes approachable because it's not threatening. And we're very

not threatening industry. So we don't want any adversity. don't want any controversy. So movement it is.