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The last Thursday I had an opportunity to engage in a private conversation with one of the prominent neurologists, a professor of neurology at the local medical school. He expressed an interest in learning more about massage therapy fields, particularly in the US. Although our conversation, at times, went astray from my main objective of “promoting medical massage methods for post-concussion rehabilitation” I will post here our entire discussion as close to verbatim as I can manage with my English LOL.
” Impressive! I would never think you guys have a national board.” The professor smiled pleasantly.
I offered him to visit the website https://www.ncbtmb.org/ Since he had his laptop with him, he navigated to this site and immediately asked me:
“What does bodywork stand for?”
I answered that most likely it stands for some complimentary to massage disciplines, such as stretching.
” Make sense,” he nodded.
As he continued to study the website he was happy to learn, that we also had state boards licensing/certifications. He asked me whether any research in this area was done. I offered him to read the history of medical massage assuring him the link pointed to a less than one page introductory.After reading it for a couple of times, he said:
“I see you repeated some studies here. Are there more was done by you?”
“Yes, indeed” and offered him the following link.
As I was looking at him and could see he was amazed.
“Pretty impressive,” he muttered, “Yes I now Dr. Gura well. And who is Dr. Ross Turchaninov?” he turned his head toward me.
I said that Dr. Turchaninov was the physician from Russia who practicing medical massage in Arizona. I also added:
”Practicing Medical Massage was a massive phenomenon in the Soviet Union and Soviet physicians were well trained in how to perform medical massage, and incorporate it in treatments of skeletal muscular as well as internal organ diseases.”
“Impressive,” he nodded his head several times. I knew of him that besides being an MD. Scientist and a professor of medicine he was an extremely an extremely smart and knowledgeable man.
Observing the change of expressions on his face I could see that his brain continued working. I’m not sure whether his mind worked at its full capacity when suddenly he asked me whether I can reproduce outcome of professor Zabludovsky experiment.
“Anytime and anywhere.” My answer could have been construed as arrogant. Rather, many people before me as well as I reproduced these results so many times before that
I had no shadow of a doubt that I could reproduce it again.
By the way, the professor pronounced the last name “Zabludovsky” absolutely great, exactly as any Russian speaking person would. Just for fun, I asked him if he wouldn't mind pronouncing my last name, as I was hearing all kinds of phonetic variations from different inexperienced mouths. The professor did this perfectly yet again.
At that moment, an idea crossed my mind. It actually entered it at the exactly moment when the professor was pronouncing my name so perfectly.
"By the way, professor, recently 'Science Translational Medicine' published a research paper titled: ”Massage Therapy Attenuates Inflammatory Signaling After Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage.”
I, certainly, suspected that mentioning “Science Translational Medicine” will work magic. Yet it was curious to observe how close to the truth my supposition was. The professor immediately went online, and spend some time to read and to reread the original paper.
This is the nature of acceptance by a medical doctor. If an article is published in a certain trusted publication, where the editorial board will protect it from weak and not reliable study results. “Science Translational Medicine” is one of these publishing authorities.
Simply speaking, in this study, the researchers went straight to muscle biopsies genetic analysis before an injury, after injury, and then after the leg was massaged. This is a very simple approach to getting the answers, and at the same time, this is very acceptable high standards in approaching any research. Bypassing demagoguery, they investigated if what was done before can be reproduced.
***
Coming back to our meeting.
“Boris thank you very much for your time, it was great to meet you.” the professor smiles and stretched his hand for a handshake.
It was certainly my pleasure as well. At the same time, I explained to the professor that as a businessman and a massage therapy activist my goal was not only to meet a nice person, and a scholar of medicine, but also to reach out to him as one of the best representatives of the medical community and facilitate obtaining a grant for conducting a controlled concussions research.
After some pondering he asked me:
” How many massage therapists can you teach in how to perform concussion massage protocol?”
“A lot. In the classroom CEs environment, and having instructional medical massage educational videos home studies, in a short period of time we can prepare a lot of practitioners who will be able to deliver results.”
He asked me if I have an instructional medical massage educational video for a concussion. As my staff and I are currently working on its production I answered:
“Yes, it’s almost done and soon it will be available.”
The professor’s smile has a share of uncertainty: ”I'll do my best, but everything could happen..”
During last 20 years, I heard this line too many times. I don't know how much time he planned to spend with me. I planned for one-hour and it took almost four. Something must come out of this. Let's pray and hope!
As always you're welcome to post comments, questions, whatever on your mind.
Best wishes,
Boris
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