Atlanta, GA | Dr. Chris Williams of Regenexx | Interventional Orthopedics of Atlanta

Dr. Williams explains how he went from a disadvantaged kid who could barely graduate high school to a Suma cum Laude college graduate who ended up in medical school and then choosing regenerative medicine and Regenexx as a career.

Transcription

Speaker 1: I grew up in inner city, single parent household. Mom really struggling to raise four kids by herself. My mom didn't have time to get us involved with sports, and she was just one parent with four children. And so my activity level, once it dwindled, I filled that with video games and TV, and my grades went from A, B down to the D, F, and I barely graduated high school.

Speaker 1: When I went into the military, things changed, and I learned how to become more structured in my thought process and then how I approach things changed. I went back to being an honor student, and then I went into college using that same structure of working out every day, running every morning, and excelled and graduated summa cum laude from college and decided to go to medical school. And I'm somebody that barely graduated high school. Never took an college entrance exam and all because I was told that I would never be able to go to college.

Speaker 1: And so that was just powerful for me and I just continue that regimen of physical activity and that structure in my day to day life. And I still implement that today. I still work out every day, some form of physical activity. My son, me, and my wife, we all work out. We run with him. We work out together. We do everything, and we try to do things as natural as possible because your body is the greatest piece of equipment that you can have.

Speaker 1: In terms of me trying to find a field of medicine that really peaked my interest because I am heavily, as you know, into fitness, health, nutrition, cooking, and all of those things, and so when I found out about the field of regenerative medicine, it was just like a light bulb. It was the Cinderella effect or a Cinderella moment for me. The slipper fit.

Speaker 1: When you come from a traditional medical practice or a traditional pain practice that focused on musculoskeletal medicine, it's more of a factory. You're running this rat race. You have 10 to 15 minutes to see a patient. If they come in with knee pain, you're looking at their knee for 10 minutes and maybe talking to them about a brief plan, but that's not the whole concept and the approach and the philosophy behind what Regenexx is and what makes it special. We look at the whole body. If you come in with knee pain, we want to know what's going on with your back, what's going on with your ankle, what activities that you like to do, and what's your goals of treatment because we may be can get you there better than if we just isolated and looked at your knee only, but you may have some back and leg issues, as well.

Speaker 1: And all of the physicians here know that nobody is at the end stage of their learning. Everybody's teaching and learning from each other. Even though I'm one of the younger physicians here, I bring a certain skill set that some of the other doctors that can benefit from, and they teach me a lot of things, as well. So that's the thing that I like about working with Regenexx because it's a family concept, and everybody is in it together just to make the science better and how we can make patients better to benefit and live their life to their potential.