The Thinking Practitioner Podcast:

Episode 112: The San Diego Pain Summit (with Rajam Roose) 

Key Points In the Podcast

• Introduction and background of Rajam Roose (0:00-4:00)
• How Rajam Roose started the San Diego Pain Summit (4:00-9:00)
• The focus of the San Diego Pain Summit on topics not typically covered in other conferences (9:00-14:00)
• The interdisciplinary nature of the summit and the importance of collaboration between different professions (14:00-19:00)
• Challenges faced by the summit, including limited resources and the need for nonprofit status (19:00-25:00)
• The motivation behind organizing the summit and the passion for sharing important information (25:00-29:00)
• The availability of past summit talks on the San Diego Pain Summit YouTube channel (29:00-32:00)
• The upcoming San Diego Pain Summit in March 2024 and the changes in format (32:00-36:00)
• Trends and changes in pain science education observed through the summit (36:00-40:00)
• How to find more information about the San Diego Pain Summit (40:00-43:00)
• Closing remarks and contact information (43:00-46:00)

 

Whitney Lowe:

Welcome to The Thinking Practitioner Podcast.

Til Luchau:

A podcast where we dig into the fascinating issues, conditions, and quandaries in the massage and manual therapy world today.

Whitney Lowe:

I'm Whitney Lowe.

Til Luchau:

And I'm Til Luchau. Welcome to The Thinking Practitioner.

Whitney Lowe:

Welcome to The Thinking Practitioner. And welcome to The Thinking Practitioner Podcast, where Books of Discovery has been a part of the massage therapy and body work world for over 25 years. Nearly 3,000 schools around the globe teach with their textbooks, eTextbooks, and digital resources. Books of Discovery likes to say that learning adventures start here, and they find that same spirit here on the Thinking Practitioner Podcast and are proud to support our work, knowing that we share the mission to bring the massage and bodywork community thought-provoking and enlivening content that advances our profession.

Instructors of manual therapy education programs can request complimentary copies of Books of Discovery textbooks to review for use in their programs. So please reach out at booksofdiscovery.com and listeners can explore their collection of learning resources for anatomy, pathology, kinesiology, physiology, ethics, and business mastery at booksofdiscovery.com, where Thinking Practitioner listeners can save 15% by entering thinking at checkout. Til is off this week and I am joined by my friend Rajam Roose who is the CEO of the San Diego Pain Summit. So welcome to the Thinking Practitioner podcast. Great to have you here.

Rajam Roose:

Thanks so much for having me, Whitney. I appreciate it.

Whitney Lowe:

For people who might not know a little bit about the summit, we're going to get into that in a little bit, but I want to start off with a little bit about your background in terms of how you got going with the summit, and then we'll venture into what it actually is. But you have a really fascinating background of your work prior to getting going with this. So tell us a little bit about how you got into this.

Rajam Roose:

Yeah. I graduated from massage school in 1999 and became a massage therapist. Initially I was just going to work and save up enough money and get a sailboat and go continue my traveling around the world. But-

Whitney Lowe:

You had also done a crazy hitchhiking trip at some point too, hadn't you? Or just something like that.

Rajam Roose:

There's actually a book, Travels With a Road Dog. It's on Amazon. I wrote a book about the four-year journey. I had settled and I was interested in massage because I thought, hey, there's something I could do to contribute to society that won't make me feel unhappy and I can save up money and get a sailboat. Keep on traveling. And then as I entered the profession and I started working with people and seeing how massage was helping reduce their pain or helping them manage their pain, I became really interested in how is this working? What's going on here? And nothing that I learned in school really was a satisfying answer to me. Because when I grew up I used to think about ... I was a rebellious kid, but I used to press my finger in the meat packets at the meat department. You push your finger into it. And I was thinking of that and I was like, well, I'm just basically pressing tissue. How am I helping their pain?

But you see people come in and they're so uptight and then after so many months they're relaxed and their tissues are soft. So it was very interesting to me. I guess it kicked off reading the book, The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge. And I read that and I was like, okay. And then I started reading more about the nervous system and the brain, which we don't ... At least in my day, we did not learn about that in massage therapy school. And then of course I'd got certified with your program, which was one of the best programs I thought at the time. A little plug for you.

Whitney Lowe:

All right. Yeah, appreciate that.

Rajam Roose:

So I started getting more into the nervous system and what pain is, and I started learning that about how it wasn't so much what I was doing, it was basically everything else around it. So the consistency I had in my practice, the professionalism, always letting clients know what I was about to do before I did it. Even if they had been coming in for years, I was always letting them ... There was no surprises. Keeping a rhythmic flow. All those things, when you look at the therapeutic alliance and creating trust and the person feeling heard, those are the things that really can help reduce pain.

I didn't want to do massage indefinitely of course. I had missed my chance to get a sailboat because by then I was married. Happily so. And I thought, well maybe I can organize continuing education classes. And so I started doing that and it was in one of those classes that the instructor during the break was talking to the learners. He was like, "Are you guys even learning about Patrick Wall or anything about Mosley or Melzach in your school?" And they were like, "Yeah, but we don't know what to do with it." That's when I got the idea for the summit and I was like, you know what? A conference is like a workshop. It's just bigger. Surely I can do that. So that's how that-

Whitney Lowe:

I have to say, I have always found this just so impressive about you, this can-do attitude of, oh yeah, I'll just go start organizing continuing education workshops or I'll just start a conference and do it. I think that's just so impressive the way that you've just taken the bull by the horns and just decided this needs to be done and I'm going to do it. So I think that's inspirational for a lot of people.

Rajam Roose:

Oh, thank you.

Whitney Lowe:

So that led to your starting the summit and the summit ... For those people who don't know, I'm going to have you talk a little bit about it, but this has become a very significant event with people coming from all over the world. Both participants and presenters. And I just want to say that I think it's phenomenal that you did this as a massage therapist without a background in event organization and with all kinds of connections and things that people usually have to have. And then you've handled most of this stuff just by yourself. I think it's really impressive. So tell us a little bit about what the summit is about and who comes to it and what we get out of that.

Rajam Roose:

Yeah. I really wanted to talk more about the things that you don't hear about at conferences or at pain conferences. I didn't really want to get into techniques or formulas or anything because there's so many conferences out there that we can get more education in manual techniques or therapeutic techniques or however. So I wanted to do something different and one of the things I was finding was missing was conversations about the power differential between the clinician and the practitioner. In fact, one of the very first talks was about how to give your patient the space to talk about their pain. So these are things that I felt were missing from a lot of discussions. And so those are the type of talks I started bringing in. And then it was about 2018 ... '17 or '18, I can't remember. One of the speakers asked the room, "How many of you have heard of social determinants of pain?" And less than half the room raise their hand. And so at that point I was like, okay, I'm going to do more specific social determinants of pain. And so I started focusing more on that.

And so there's a lot of things like about communication and understanding where your patient's point of view. And these are just things that I have ... When I've gone to other conferences there's still a lot more biomedically ... You just don't see a lot of that information there. And then again, because it's just myself running everything, I don't have to worry about making people upset. I can have topics that a lot of events shy away from because they can be seen as controversial, but they're extremely important topics. And so I have had help with finding speakers. One of my friends used to be a headhunter for speakers at the combined sections meeting for the American Physical Therapy Association. And then occasionally someone who's spoken at a prior event will contact me and say, "Hey, you need to have this person." And because I trust that they know what my event is about and they've been there, I trust who they recommend to me. So that's typically how I've found speakers.

The speakers for this year, I found ... I helped out at a friend's booth at the International Association for the Pain Conference in Toronto a couple of years ago. And it was basically that's where I poached half my speakers because I would run into former speakers and they would see someone walk by and they'd be like, "Oh, you got to get that guy right there." So I'm like, "Okay, done." And the audience is mostly ... I'd like it to be interdisciplinary because I think people from different professional clinical backgrounds help the patient better and I know there's a paper about that that demonstrates that the patient actually gets better if they have a more interdisciplinary team. And I've had several PTs come up to me and say this over the years, because so many massage therapists in particular from British Columbia come, they'll say, "I had no idea massage therapists were interested in this information. When I go back to my hometown, I think I'm going to look up and see if I can find anybody." So having these different professional backgrounds get together, they see, hey, this group would work really well with what I do. So that was the point of that.

It does tend to attract the most physical therapists, and to be honest, that's just because the application for continuing education for physical therapist is very ... It's the cheapest of all the professions. So it ranges from theirs, which is like $200 a year ... Used to be 125 but as the years go by. To 6,000. And then I was just able to offer continuing education for occupational therapists in the state of California because that fee was only $75. A lot of people don't realize you have to pay a fee to complete the form. It doesn't guarantee that you're going to get approved. When you fill it out and you pay the money, you have to think, well, that could be a loss of money right there. I may not get anything from that. So that's why I tend to attract more PTs.

I'm a bit sore about it because I think that sometimes I feel like it's a bit of a racket that these groups are going to charge 500 to $6,000 a year for the application, and I don't understand what the money's for. It's just very limiting. It keeps us in our silos as one of my friends mentioned. Because for example, I know a few years ago ... I don't know about right now. But I know a few years ago, for example, nursing, you couldn't offer CEU unless all the speakers had a nursing degree.

Whitney Lowe:

Oh, really?

Rajam Roose:

Yeah. So really what that does is it prevents nurses from being able to learn from people outside their own organization that may have something very important. So I wish that wasn't an issue. But I do get mostly physical therapists and then I get 25% ... So like 60% PTs, 25% massage therapists, and the rest I get a smattering of chiropractors, personal trainers, yoga practitioners. I've had acupuncturists, athletic trainers, physicians occasionally, and psychologists occasionally.

Whitney Lowe:

Yeah. I wanted to go back to the silo thing for just a second. It's interesting to hear that perspective too about the different requirements for being able to do that. It seems to me that a lot of the thrust of the research and a lot of ... At least the discussion on social media around pain science concepts has been very active in the physiotherapy community and not as active in a lot of those other professions as well. And I was wondering if that might've been a factor of making a greater percentage of those people really interested in what was happening there too. That may or may not have been in some, but that's just a perception it seems like.

Rajam Roose:

Well, physical therapists are ... Well, I don't know about right now since Musk took over Twitter. But from a social media marketing perspective, you want to be where your audience is. And when it was Twitter, a lot of physical therapists and research scientists were on Twitter. So that's where that audience happens to be. Massage therapists tended to be more on Pinterest and Facebook. So I think it may have a lot to do with what platform you're looking at as opposed to whose really talking about pain. Because I know in the massage therapy groups, Facebook groups, there's been discussions around pain and pain science.

Whitney Lowe:

Yeah. Yeah. And back to the silo thing for a second, because this is one of the things that I think that you did so exceptionally well with this conference. And you mentioned this to me one time before. This was a little thing, and I noticed it when I went to the summit too. What might seem like even a real simple thing, but with the name tags that you gave people, you didn't put their profession on their name tags in order to level the playing field it seemed like with everybody. That was an intentional move there in doing that?

Rajam Roose:

Yeah. So there's two sides to this story. There's always the true story and then there's what the story turns into. The true story is when I thought about organizing this conference, which was back in January of 2014, I was like, well, I don't know anything about doing a conference, so let me look at what people's biggest complaints are about attending conferences and then not do that that.

Whitney Lowe:

So I got to interrupt you for a minute. How did you find out what those complaints are?

Rajam Roose:

I googled, why do conferences suck or why are conferences boring? Why do conferences suck? Why was this conference a shit show? Stuff like that.

Whitney Lowe:

That's great.

Rajam Roose:

I didn't find anything specific. There was so many answers. There was nothing across the board. But the one thing I found that several people had commented on from different angles, perspectives, I guess, was the names on the name tag being too small to read because of all the crap on there. So because of all the ribbons stuck on there or because all the letters and the place. And so people were like, "It's really embarrassing when you just meet somebody, you're holding your plate and you don't want them seeing your eyes rereading their name tag to try and see it with all that lettering and all the letters." I was like, you know what? I'm just going to put the name. I put the first name big, and then the last name was a little smaller.

But then what happened because of that ... So that way you could see the name from further away or you can side eye and still read it because it doesn't have all the other crap on there. But then that conference, which was in 2015, I had a woman come up to me and she was like, "I'm so glad you didn't put all the designations and where people are from on the name tag." Because she was like, "I was sitting next to the head of the Mayo Clinic in Texas or somebody," and she was like, "If I had known that that was his position, I would've been too nervous to talk to him." And they ended up talking and having great discussions. And it wasn't until they were into it that she learned, and then by then she was comfortable with him. But I was like, Hey, okay. So that's the new reason. The new reason now.

Whitney Lowe:

Well, I had one of those too.

Rajam Roose:

It keeps everybody on the equal footing.

Whitney Lowe:

Yeah. I had one of those. I was having lunch with a group of people at a table during one of the afternoons at the summit presentations. Was talking to this gentleman that was just very inquisitive about what was going on with massage therapy. I didn't even know what his position was and he was a major pain science researcher, and again, had been very surprised to understand how interested that we were as clinicians in a lot of the stuff that they were doing with their research. And he was speaking about how many different people were there representing all these different professions. And he said, "I think what you guys are doing in the massage and manual therapy world is so incredible with addressing the whole biopsychosocial framework in all these different capacities. You just have a tremendous capability to make a difference for people." I was so impressed, and he just was very inquisitive and I learned so much from him. Later on found out who he was and I was like, I don't know if I would've gotten into all that if I had known.

Rajam Roose:

Yeah. And that's the thing. A good friend of mine told me once, many, many years ago. It was before I started this summit actually. It was before Facebook so I joined this online forum and I was mentioning to my friend, I'm like, "Yeah, I don't know if it's worth it. I'm just a lowly massage therapist," and blah, blah, blah. He's like, "You know what?" He said, "Massage therapists actually have the greatest freedom of other clinicians to take the time to listen to their client. To give suggestions and lifestyle changes and stuff like that that would not be out of our scope that we have time to do because we're paying attention to client." So when he told me that, I was like, yeah, actually we do have a lot ... It's a unique space that massage therapists have think.

Whitney Lowe:

I've said that to students a lot over the years. And the other part of that is with that great freedom and capability comes great responsibility, and we need to recognize that also. That means that we really need to beef up what we're doing and make sure that we're up to the task of what that really allows us. So I'm going to go to a couple other things here with the summit itself and some of its structure. Again, this is just mind-boggling to me knowing this. But knowing that you have run this thing almost single-handedly by yourself. How many years now has it been going on? When was the first one?

Rajam Roose:

So this year will be the 10th year.

Whitney Lowe:

This is the 10th year.

Rajam Roose:

But it's the 11th conference. Because when the pandemic started, I actually had an extra one online. So I had done 2020 in person, and then I did a 2020 online too. So it's actually the 11th summit, but it's the 10th year.

Whitney Lowe:

So again, it's so impressive to me. And I'm curious to know what have been some of the most impactful learning experiences for you out of that process? I'm sure you've learned a tremendous amount, not only from the participants and the speakers, but just about the whole process. And so what sticks out as some of the key things that you really grabbed from that?

Rajam Roose:

Yeah. Well, I think the very first thing was having a better understanding as to why massage was so helpful with my clients who were in pain. Because I didn't know about all that stuff about therapeutic alliance and all that until I had researchers coming and talking about it. So over the years, I've heard people talk and I'm like, oh, that makes sense why that seemed to be so helpful. So there were a lot of revelations there. And then of course, now, since it's been a while ... I closed my business in 2015, so it's been a while since I've had it. Now it's more about things like seeing how important community is and how people want to work together and they want to collaborate. They just need the space to be able to do that in.

And then also last year ... There was an event that used to be a combined sections meeting for the American Physical Therapy Association called PT After Dark. And it was a place where you had really discussions about and healthcare and that sort of thing. Well, they decided to have it at the San Diego Pain Summit. So we had it last year and it was just so interesting. The topic I think was being anti-racist and what we can do as clinicians who are white can do better in making our practice more inclusive. And it was so interesting because the conversation got heated. People were sharing some really heavy things. But I was watching from the end of the table ... It was a big table. There were about 20, 30 people. And right when it got super heated, everybody leaned in and I was just like, whoa, that is amazing. It is possible to create these spaces where we can have these great discussions and so that's been something really cool that I've learned too. And then there's things that I've learned that are like, well, if I had gotten a degree in event planning, I would've known that years ago. Some things you learn the hard way and it's not pleasant. But I think it's okay as long as you don't keep repeating the same mistake.

Whitney Lowe:

Yeah. It is. Well, throughout all that, you have certainly been able to conjure up a reputation for putting together a great event because that's the reputation that is out there is that this is a great event. And having been there and really reaped that, I certainly would agree. So kudos to you again for pulling that off.

Rajam Roose:

Thanks Whitney. That's really nice.

Whitney Lowe:

So let me go back to a moment. I want to talk some more about the interdisciplinary nature of this. I would love to see things going beyond the borders of just this conference and finding other ways that we could enhance communication between all these different professions. We're all trying to help people. That's really our goal. We're all trying to do something to help people, but it seems like we do get locked into these borders and barriers and silos and things like that so often. But has anything come up for you as a result of doing this that you thought like, hey, this is a great idea of way that we could expand this beyond the summit and help some of these professions talk to each other more, have a little bit more communication?

Rajam Roose:

Yeah. It's something that I would like to do, but the plus side of me doing everything myself is that I make decisions quickly. I can do pretty much what I want not have to worry about. But then the biggest downside is that I don't have anyone to bounce ideas off of. And so it's very difficult if you don't have a team to come up with these ideas of how you can expand this reach or this growth or however. Another limiting factor is that I ironically cannot afford the paperwork to be a nonprofit. So I am a for-profit, even though I don't make a profit. I have not paid myself ever. I think I've been able to pay myself like $10,000 one time. That's it for all the years of all the work that I put into this.

Whitney Lowe:

So I got to ask, why do you do this? What's in it for you? Is this just a passion of doing this? What allows you to keep doing this and keep doing it at this level? Because you get world-class presenters and just incredible people coming from everywhere.

Rajam Roose:

Well, it helps to live in San Diego, right?

Whitney Lowe:

Yeah. That's true. You bring people to San Diego in February. That helps.

Rajam Roose:

I think that's the biggest key, to be honest. Another is that I respect my speakers and I treat them well. So I either pay them or I at least reimburse their flight and their lodging, so they're honored for their time because I know it takes a lot of time to present. I've taught courses before, so I know all the hard work that goes into it. So I think that's one reason why I'm able to get some of these speakers. And I just lost the conversation. Whatever that first question was.

Whitney Lowe:

We're just looking at ways that we can try to get each other talking some more.

Rajam Roose:

Yeah. And there's a lot of nonprofits, they won't don't want to talk to you unless you're a nonprofit. So whatever policy, whatever reason they have, I'm sure there's a reason they have that policy in place because there's always a reason why the people add policies. But it's been tough just because of that. To be honest, there's a lot of backstories and drama and all kinds of things that go on in a lot of organizations that are just ... I think that in itself prevents a lot of things. I was meeting with a friend and she was telling me about her organization, which is in a different country and how she worked for this organization, and yet a lot of money's getting siphoned off somewhere within the organization. So you're having to deal with that human nature of being dishonest, disloyal, in it for yourself. So I think that prevents a lot of growth and connecting too.

But honestly, I'd say the biggest issue is just that it's just me. I don't have anybody to bounce ideas off about how to go about doing more. Because I'd love to do more and have a bigger effect. And I'm able to do all this ... Sorry, just to add. Is because my husband makes enough ... He's a history professor, so he makes enough income to support us. Our property was from his family, so we don't have a mortgage or any of that stuff, and we don't really spend a lot of money, do a lot of big things. We're pretty low-key. I'm not in a position where I have to make a living, but I am also very passionate about this information, especially when I attend other events and hear people complaining about how it's all too biomedical. Or I've seen people attend events last year and somebody was tweeting about how, oh my God, they had a talk on the social determinants of pain. And I'm like, I've been doing that since 2015. So I think the summit's still pretty small on the radar for a lot of things I think.

Whitney Lowe:

So, because you're not necessarily doing a lot of clinical work yourself any longer, do you still find yourself captivated and interested in the topics of the things that come up around these things? Like you've mentioned several different things that you've learned and brought in speakers about. Has there been anything that really juiced you also about the topics of what people have talked about?

Rajam Roose:

How I really choose the topics for the following year is during the event, I'm so busy, I don't have time really to listen to talks. But what I like to do is walk around and have one ear for anyone who's trying to talk to me directly. And the other year is listening, and I like to listen to the questions and thoughts people have about the talks that they're hearing. And so I'll take that information, I'll be like, wow, a lot of people sure had a lot of questions about this. For example, back before 2016, I was seeing a lot of arguments online about placebo and was it helpful to have placebo or was it ethical and this and that. And so that's why I got Dr. Fabrizio Benedetti, who at the time was the foremost researcher in placebo. His books on placebo are just excellent. And that's why I got him. So I find people by looking at our arguments online or hearing what people are saying at the event.

There have been some talks ... Again, I don't honestly get to hear them until after the event is over usually and then I'll watch the recordings. And there's bits and pieces here where I'm just like, huh. For example, Vania Apkarian's talk in 2018, I think. Where he talked about the processes of when acute pain turns into chronic pain and how that looks within the brain. Which of course when you're looking at things going on in the brain, it's like a conundrum because you're like, well, is it changed because that's what changes it? You don't know what the result. You don't know why it's doing what it's doing. But he's talking about when something's transpired into chronic pain, you can see it by how the brain is functioning as opposed to when it's in acute pain so that was interesting.

Whitney Lowe:

Yeah. Yeah. Those are a lot of just incredible frontiers of places that I think we're going and going to continue to learn a great deal more as we move through the future with it. Well, I want to also go back for a second and talk about some of the resources that you've made available through the incredible people that you have had on your roster of these different presentations. Now, you keep a library, and if I'm not mistaken, of previous talks and things like that on your website. Is that right? And those are also accessible to people from previous summits?

Rajam Roose:

Yeah. I used to use it as a way to help fund the conference. I had you pay a fee, a membership or whatever, and then as more recordings were added, it became to ... Anyway, I've just gone through all these different ways of doing it. And then finally when the pandemic hit, nobody could really afford to access the talks. And I was becoming frustrated because from my perspective, I really want this information to get out there, and it's not going to get out there if it's behind a paywall. So I was like, you know what? I'm just going to make it all ... So it's all free on the YouTube channel. You can watch the talks from 2015 to 2023. However, what I do now is when the 2024 talks are uploaded as recordings, people have a very short window to purchase those and then you can't purchase them anymore. You can't view them unless you've prepaid, already purchased them. And then if you wait until the end of the year, I'll release those free on YouTube.

Whitney Lowe:

Yeah.

Rajam Roose:

And I get permission from the speakers. Some talks aren't up there and that's because the speaker has asked for me not to put it up there.

Whitney Lowe:

But I want everybody to take that in for just a moment, how generous that is of you in doing that, and what an incredible resource this is of that many talks over all of those years being available there on that YouTube channel. That's just, again, a phenomenal amount of incredible information that's out there for people to use and expand their horizons of their understanding of pain from lots of different perspectives. I'm assuming the San Diego Pain Summit is the name of the YouTube channel where people can find it. Is that correct?

Rajam Roose:

Yeah. Just youtube.com/sandiegopainsummit or just go to my website. It's in the top part of the website too.

Whitney Lowe:

Yeah. Great. Well, we have one coming up here soon. The San Diego Pain Summit is always held in the wintertime/early spring and the next one is coming up pretty soon. When is the next one coming down the pike?

Rajam Roose:

It's March one through three. And this is going to be different setup than prior events. I used to have four days of pre-conference workshops and then the two days conference. And I've done away with all the workshops, and now it's just three days. People can sign up for all three days or just two days. And the first day is a Friday, and that's going to consist of three really interactive discussion sessions. So three sessions that are about two and a half to three hours long. And then we're going to have a break where Daria Oller who's a doctor, physical therapist and athletic trainer, she's going to lead a burlesque dance class just for midday if anyone wants to stick around for that. And then the Saturday and Sunday are the typical talks. 45 minute, 15 minute Q&A with the breaks in the middle.

Whitney Lowe:

So we did an episode ... Our last episode, in fact was an interview with Lorimer Moseley, who I know was he was at your very first one. It was like you got the keynote speaker, top of the list of people that would probably you'd like to have there for that very first one. And that was the very first summit you did, right?

Rajam Roose:

Yeah. When the idea hit me to have it, because I had already observed and been involved in discussions with other clinicians on this forum ... It was called SomaSimple. I instantly knew who I wanted to be on the stage. Instantly, I was like, oh, I want that person, that person, that person, because of the things I have read that I thought would be important to put their voice on stage. But I knew that nobody would probably be interested because at the time, I was just a nobody. I wasn't involved with an organization. I had no prior experience doing an event.

So I knew that I had to get a big name, and the best one I could think of was Lorimer Moseley. So I had written him and he wrote back and he thought that was a great idea. And he's like, "Well, when is it?" And I said, "Well, it's whenever you could come." Because he was like the cornerstone or the keystone actually, sorry. And so he said he could come February so that's why the first one was in February. But then I realized by having that, I realized how cheap it is to visit San Diego in February. Now this one is going to be at the beginning of March. It's March one through third, so it's a little different. But San Diego is a tourist city, and January through February is very slow tourist season here. So hotels are the cheapest, flights into the city are the cheapest. There's more deals. Everything is cheaper. The hotel that I have this event in, I get a room discount of 200 a night for the attendee or just under 200 a night. By August these rooms are $600 a night.

Whitney Lowe:

Oh, wow.

Rajam Roose:

Yeah. When I realized that when I was looking at flights and stuff for my speakers, I was like, you know what? I think I'm going to have it in February every year. It's still expensive for a lot of people. I understand that. But if you compare it to any other time of the year, it's going to be the cheapest.

Whitney Lowe:

Yeah. So one of the things that Lorimer Moseley had said in our podcast interview with him, he had talked about moving through several different evolutionary stages of pain science education. I'm wondering if you have seen trends or changes of any significance over the course of the time that you've been doing the summit that are really relevant for people on a clinical basis doing these things that they're doing in the treatment room with their clients and patients?

Rajam Roose:

That is a really good question, but I can't answer it right away because I'm so involved on the back end of this event my focus is more ... I don't have a lot of attention on how things have changed. I could probably answer if I could review information and look at things and that sort of thing. But I am seeing a lot more interest in person-centered care. Listening to the patient. So for example, on Friday at this one one of the discussion sessions and role playing is going to be how to validate your patient's pain. Because that's everything. If somebody feels like they're being listened to and that they're being believed, you're over halfway there in their pain management program.

Whitney Lowe:

Well, that's absolutely wonderful. And again, I'm just so continually impressed by what you've done with this event and all the other adventures that you've been through. And I want to encourage anybody who has never been there to go check that out. It's a wonderful event. And how can people find out about the summit details and all that stuff? I think you mentioned the website before, but let's have it up there again. Let us know where people can find out more about it.

Rajam Roose:

So just go to sandiegopainsummit.com and you can see the agenda, the schedule of events, the signup. We still have some seats. In-person seating is limited because the venue space is small. But I've been live-streaming it every year, and I get a lot of good feedback on the live stream because you can chat with other online viewers, you participate in Q&As. I have my MC specifically pull questions from online viewers so they can communicate with the speakers and they get the recordings after. So that's always been an option. Or you can just pay for the recordings if you can't make the live stream and then have access to those indefinitely.

Whitney Lowe:

Yeah. So there's a wide variety of different choices of how people can get to that content. But again, I would also say there is no substitute for the being there in person and having those conversations and meeting up with people and talking with folks who are looking at things from different perspectives. That's just a wonderful aspect of that event. So again, thank you so much for all that you have done over the years of producing this event, putting it together, and making a great contribution to helping people in pain all over the place. So we appreciate it.

Rajam Roose:

Thank you so much, Whitney. I appreciate it.

Whitney Lowe:

Yeah. Good. Well, thanks for joining us here today. And do remember again, The Thinking Practitioner Podcast is supported by ABMP, Associated Bodywork and Massage Professionals. ABMP membership gives professional practitioners like you a package including individual liability insurance, free continuing education, and quick reference apps, online scheduling and payments with PocketSuite, and much more. ABMP's CE courses, podcast and the Massage & Bodywork Magazine always feature expert voices and new perspectives in the profession, including from Til and myself. Thinking Practitioner listeners can save on joining ABMP at abmp.com/thinking.

So thank you again to the listeners for hanging out with us here again today, and also to all of our sponsors. You can stop by our sites for the video, show notes, transcripts, and any extras. You can find that over on my site at academyofclinicalmassage.com and also over on Til's site at advanced-trainings.com.

If you've got any comments, questions, or things you'd like to hear us talk about, just record a short voice memo on your phone and email it to us or send us an email directly at info@thethinkingpractitioner.com or look for us on social media under our names. You can find me under mine, Whitney Lowe, and also Til Luchau, for him as well on social media. And if you will take a moment to rate us on the Apple Podcast as it does help other people find the show. And you can hear us on Spotify, Stitcher, Podbean, or wherever else you happen to listen. So please do share the word, tell a friend. And Rajam, thank you again so much for being here with me and we'll see you in the next one.

Rajam Roose:

Thanks Whitney. Thank you so much.