Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jeff Merkt. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Jeff, so great to have you on the platform. There’s so much we want to ask you, but let’s start with the topic of self-care. Do you do anything for self-care and if so, do you think it’s had a meaningful impact on your effectiveness?
There are a few things I do for self-care; cook, travel, try new restaurants but most importantly it would be working out. The most important thing for my overall well-being is exercising. I feel most effective mentally, physically and emotionally if I’ve been consistent with exercising. Everyone in the workforce deals with daily stress and pressure that is mostly non-physical, unless you work in a labor-intensive job. Being able to burn off that stress after work or anytime throughout the day in a healthy manner carries over into other daily activities and from my experience leads to being more positive and resilient as a person.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
As a chiropractor, I’m sure most people think you only would see me for back pain or just to get adjusted. It’s true that we as chiropractors treat back pain and adjust, but the most vital aspect of the treatment I incorporate is corrective exercises. The incorporation of corrective exercises is essential in making sure the dysfunctions we found during your day one new patient exam are treated and corrected. A dysfunction in movement or in posture may not initially cause pain or discomfort but years down the road it can lead to accelerated degeneration of joints, development of compensation patterns and ultimately lead to corrective surgery.
The use of corrective exercises is just one of the tools I utilize to help people get pain free and back to enjoying life without giving a second thought of what their previous pain may limit them from doing. I also use decompression therapy to help those with advanced degenerative changes, bulging discs and disc herniations. I will utilize dry needling to assist in accelerating the healing process for those that are found to have soft tissue involvement with what brought them to see me. On top of these services, I can also incorporate other modalities such as cupping, taping, scraping and electrical stimulation when necessary for the patient.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
The skill/area of knowledge that had the biggest impact on how I practice has been what I pull from my past career as a strength and conditioning coach. Being able to modify exercises and knowing correct exercise prescription is invaluable when dealing with a wide variety of complex movement-based problems.
The second most important quality is my ability to communicate with patients. I was fortunate to have teammates in college from all over the world and come from a wide variety of backgrounds. This experience became beneficial in my coaching career and has a great carry over into my current career. If you can’t effectively communicate what needs to be done for the patient’s benefit, then I feel as if you are doing a disservice to those who trust in you, their health.
The third quality is listening. If you’ve built up trust between yourself and another, that individual will share with you what’s going on in their life and this is huge in developing a trusting patient/doctor relationship. Being attentive and remembering what people share with you shows that you actually care for them.
The only advice I can offer in regard to development of these skills is to just try. You’re going to screw up along the way, but those screw ups need to become learning experiences in order to develop as a person. If you don’t continuously learn you become stagnant and stuck in your ways.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
We love working with local businesses, gyms, personal trainers, massage therapists and anyone who is invested in their health. The easiest way to reach out to me is on Instagram @jeff_merkt_dc .
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.healthsourcechiro.com/st-peters
- Instagram: @jeff_merkt_dc @healthsourcestpeters
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
