Interview with Dr. Rock Vomer.

The full conversation

Dr. Joshua Lyon: Hi everyone, I’m Joshua Lyon, a physical therapist and owner of AIM Advance In Motion Physical Therapy and host of the provider spotlight series. With us today is Dr. Rock Vomer. He is board certified in both family and sports medicine as well as the unique distinction of having his Doctor of Physical Therapy degree. We’ll touch on that here in a bit for sure, but he leads the team at Advance Care here in Wilmington, has a research position with the Mayo Clinic focusing on sports medicine, and works on policies to improve engagement and access to sports performance, weight loss, and nutrition management, truly taking a holistic approach with his patients. Outside of work he enjoys time with his family, has a new baby, which definitely changes priorities and lifestyle, and also has extended family in town. His family founded Pure Protein, which led to him having a very active lifestyle outdoors. He grew up playing football and baseball, so he has a special affinity for working with youth and collegiate sports teams. I know you’re going to learn a ton from him and I’m thrilled to have you on the show. Thanks for joining me, Dr. Vomer.

Dr. Rock Vomer: Thanks, Josh. I totally appreciate it.

Dr. Joshua Lyon: This, I’m really looking forward to talking with you today.

Dr. Rock Vomer: Yeah, likewise.

Dr. Joshua Lyon: Yeah, definitely want to hear your story. You’ve got a very unique one, obviously growing up active, going into healthcare, physical therapy, and now your current profession. So tell us a little bit about what got you into healthcare, and that evolution.

Dr. Rock Vomer: Yeah, so evolution is probably a really good word for the journey. Originally it started with exposure to my uncle’s company. I grew up watching him build Pure Protein and being around athletes and professional athletes and nutritionists. I got a really heavy root in being active, exercising, and applying science to help improve performance, and for my athletic career it was really helpful. But also for figuring out as a young person where you want to go from a professional development standpoint, it originally led me to physical therapy because I said, “I can get a doctoral degree, understand rehab, performance, recovery, and help folks on the spectrum from when they’re hurt to returning back to the things they need to do and want to do.” So that’s what led me to PT. I did my PT training in Pittsburgh at Duquesne University, right in the heart of Pittsburgh, an accelerated doctorate. Through that course of time at Duquesne, a couple things happened. The first was my exposure to human subject research, particularly regarding the shoulder. Being somebody who played football and baseball, throwing athletes are always of interest, and for me it made me love the shoulder and human biomechanics. The second thing during that experience at Duquesne, my professional career decided to take a curveball. About halfway through my program for the doctoral physical therapy program, my grandfather was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, a hyper-rare neurodegenerative disorder. Our family spent a lot of time hunting for a cure, and for that, unfortunately, like some conditions, there isn’t one. It took us all over the country to major medical centers to find help. A really difficult period of time. And when you’re getting told there’s no cure, you kind of lose a little bit of hope and some faith in the healthcare infrastructure. But I was fortunate to be able to see Mayo Clinic as a patient and a family member, and for my grandfather it restored that hope and faith in the medical infrastructure, not so much because there was a good answer, but because of the way the people treated us and related to us as people. After that experience, it altered my professional trajectory. I decided I wanted to become a physician, so I went to med school after my PT program graduation, at Virginia Tech, where I actually met my wife Emma, and we did our training there. We’re both DOs, so we do the joint manipulation and the holistic patient approach, which fits well on the biopsychosocial model that physical therapists use as a foundational way to approach patient care, which completely made sense in my brain. So I saw three different situations of this is how you approach people as a whole person, working with them to get them healthy by using the natural approach first, interventional things second, not the other way around. It clicked really well. Then we went out to Norfolk at Eastern Virginia Medical School, where we did our family residency and our quality improvement fellowship. And then for me I did my sports training at Duke. During my fellowship, the opportunity presented itself for us to return home, to Emma’s home where her family’s originally from, to open our own practice. I did that as soon as I walked out the door of fellowship. I opened up my own shop, which is fun.

Dr. Joshua Lyon: That’s incredible. I love that journey, especially going from the athlete, I’m sure you suffered injuries like any athlete has at some point in your career, going to the PT route. I went to Pitt for PT school so I have a strong affinity for the city as a whole, Duquesne was just down the way, so love Pittsburgh. And then like you said, you got the whole picture, you see patients, diagnose them, and now you’ve got this holistic view of being able to help them rehab, prescribe them what they need, whatever it may be. That’s a pretty awesome background you have. So tell us a little bit about your practice, because I know that’s what, obviously you’ve got the rehab background which is kind of unique to you, but also primary care, sports fellowship. Talk about your patients, who’s going to be coming to you, what can you offer them, that kind of stuff.

Dr. Rock Vomer: 100%. So when we built the clinic, we designed it off of a division one athletic department. We watched our student athletes when I was at Duke and when Emma was at USC, that’s where she did her fellowship. We said, what do the student athletes have that keep them healthy so they can train and perform at the highest level possible? And it really boils down to a clinically integrated team. So we have physicians, we have PAs, we have NPs, we have nutritionists, we have behavioralists, and on-site we have X-ray, ultrasound labs, your DME, every single thing you would need to take care of. 95% of the entire patient experience, it’s a one-stop shop. We saw that there, we translated it to the clinic. And what we aim to do with our patients is complete whole person care from the clinic. Obviously we look at things through an active lifestyle to help folks improve their mobility, reduce their pain, and increase their quality of life so they can do the things they need to do and the things they want to do. We use our unique team structure to do that, which is different than everyone else in the region here. We’re actually the only clinically integrated unit for sports medicine in the entire southeastern region of the state.

Dr. Joshua Lyon: Oh, wow.

Dr. Rock Vomer: Oh yeah. So that’s kind of what our team does in terms of the patients that we work with. We work with folks from two to 102. Across the board, really the ideal patient for us is someone who wants to focus and partner with their physician to build evidence-based plans that are practical to help them get to their highest level of health.

Dr. Joshua Lyon: I love that. That’s awesome. So the one-stop shop, unique to y’all. What about you, you know as well as I do athletes tend to be a bit stubborn when it comes to getting treatment, like I’ll just walk it off, whatever it may be. That tends to be the mindset and a lot of us are fairly stubborn. So what would you say to someone who’s got something they’ve been dealing with for a little while, a nagging injury, you and I know it’s probably not getting better on its own, but what would you say to them as far as here’s what I can offer you, here’s why early care matters, let’s get this taken care of before it becomes a bigger issue?

Dr. Rock Vomer: Yeah, I think that’s reflective of, we work with a lot of the high schools, some of the university teams, Port City O.C., the Sharks, and a few other local teams. They’re the teams we’re responsible for taking care of. You’re right, across the athlete spectrum, guys or girls, doesn’t matter what the age is, the push-through-it mentality is always there. Sometimes it’s reasonable, other times it’s not. When I think through this, particularly as a physician and a physical therapist, my lens is how do I get you back to 100%. Because somebody playing at 50 or 60% of their best ability because they’re limited by a nagging hamstring, they’re a great example of, oh, I’ll just recover, I’ll be fine, and then you lose power, you lose speed, then you go from a strain to a tear. I think when I look at it, you’re better off getting earlier treatment and intervention quicker than waiting, because that tear will set you back a season versus a couple of weeks. And when you look at it through that lens, losing a season or a year is much more impactful on a competitive cycle, whether you’re getting compensated or not, or if you’re going after a scholarship or not. So I always encourage folks, number one, get treated early, and two, it’s based on a good working relationship with somebody who understands the uniqueness of athletes and active people, because the context of the load, whatever the sport is, mileage or time or weight, whatever you’re doing to increase your activity load, the person treating you and managing you has to understand that context, because that context matters in plan development and plan deployment to help you get healthier.

Dr. Joshua Lyon: Talk a little bit about the patient journey. A lot of people have this fear of the unknown, what should I expect. You’ve got a lot of different disciplines you can direct folks to depending on the need. So very broadly, someone comes to see you, what should they expect for that first visit, and what are the options beyond that?

Dr. Rock Vomer: Yeah, so it’s a great place to start. I wish folks did a better job explaining what patients should experience when you have the privilege of working with someone. The way our team approaches care is through a precision medicine lens. We want the data, your laboratories, your vitals, your biometrics, data from your wearables and your nutrition. My team builds a biophysical profile for every patient case. So we know what’s going on externally and internally with your body. Any treatment adjustment we’re managing for you is always based on data, because it’s science, and we can use the science to help you build a strategic plan that fits your work-life balance for the available time to make things better, and also resource-match for things like your food, your supplements, or your sleep, using what you have available to help you get healthier in a practical and sustainable manner, and we do that with every single patient.

Dr. Joshua Lyon: Can you elaborate on that a little more? Is that something you’re prescribing? Is it taking what patients already have and bringing that into the clinical decision making?

Dr. Rock Vomer: Yeah, that’s a really good question. We think through it from a prescriptive standpoint. Typically the first appointment I’ll get your actual blood work data so I actually know what’s going on. The second appointment, what I typically like to do is a body composition scan, so I know your muscle mass, your fat mass, and your energy needs, the calories you need to consume. We calculate out your macros, your protein, your carbohydrates, and your fat. Then off of that we look at your exercise plan in terms of the mode of exercise, the frequency of exercise, the timing, so we can actually plan around you training Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, off on Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday, here’s the way you’re lifting, here’s the way you’re doing your cardio and your mobility. That’s exactly what you would do with a collegiate athlete or professional athlete, how do you prescribe the exercise and the nutrition science with the end goal of improving your blood sugar or helping you lose weight or reducing your cholesterol or whatever we’re working for. Because there’s no prescription around the lifestyle. There’s no way around that with a pill. No matter how much folks want to just give you a medicine, the medicines help when they’re appropriate, but there’s no way to get around not moving, no way to get around a poor diet, no way around not sleeping and managing stress. You have to have that as a basis. Medicines come in when they’re appropriate based on your data, and we put both together. I think that’s what makes us unique.

Dr. Joshua Lyon: That’s incredible. That, to me, is so exciting, that anyone who wants to live an active life and have the longevity factor, anyone who wants to be sports specific and really accelerate their performance, to have all those touch points and data points, that’s critical information. The fact that y’all create it and prepare that for them and then direct and guide them through that whole process, that is pretty unique. Is there anything else you would want to relay to anyone watching this? Any final comments about yourself, your practice?

Dr. Rock Vomer: I think the biggest thing to think about as healthcare evolves, from what I’ve heard from our patients and our neighbors and friends in the area, is everybody is looking for a healthcare partner. We’re on the journey together, that’s what our team does every day. If you said the things that make us different, yeah, the science, application, skill, uniqueness, that’s there, but the real secret, and it’s not really a secret, is how we treat all of our patients: we’re your partner long term. We make your decisions together. We don’t make decisions for you. I think everybody deserves that opportunity, to have someone who’s willing to serve and work with them. That’s why we’re here, that’s what my team’s here for, that’s why we built the practice, because we’re rooted in this community, our family’s here. Something that’s unfortunate but that we do see is some folks have had a bad experience with American healthcare, where it takes forever to get in, they didn’t feel like they were listened to or heard, and it leads folks to disengage from healthcare across the spectrum. If you’ve felt that, I’m sorry, and it shouldn’t have happened, but don’t give up hope. If you’re willing to give somebody else a try, my team’s here to help you.

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